


Pray For Rain

by MidnightStorm6593



Series: Pray for Rain [1]
Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2017-11-26 18:22:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 48,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/653105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightStorm6593/pseuds/MidnightStorm6593
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I think a better question would be: Can you really risk it? Of course I could be lying to you, which I’m not, but what if I’m right? Is finding a cure really worth it if you all end up dead, anyway?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the Vampire Diaries nor am I making any profit from this. Characters, etc. all belong to their respective owners.

She's sitting in the town square, contemplating her life and wondering just what it's come to. How everyone just seems to have stopped caring about each other.

 

She was watched her Grams get tortured? Who cares? She needs to get her magic back ASAP otherwise she’s useless!

 

Jeremy’s slowly spiraling into madness thanks to the hunter’s mark? Who cares? Find a way to stop him from killing us (because to hell with everyone else!) so he can complete the hunter’s mark and help cure Elena!

 

Twelve hybrids and Tyler’s mom were killed by Klaus? Who cares? Klaus is helping find a cure for Elena!

 

She nearly killed a girl? Who cares? Just get a grip and get back to work!

 

It’s comical in a way and by comical, she means pathetic.

 

She loves Elena, she really does. And she knows it’s not fair to blame the girl for everything going wrong since they’ve all made bad decisions. However, she can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Elena had never invited either of the Salvatores into their lives.

 

Bonnie supposes it wouldn’t have changed things. Damon still would have mowed everything down in his warpath to try and get to Katherine (and didn’t that turn out to be a huge joke?). And even if Stefan or Damon never came to Mystic Falls, it was probably only a matter of time until Katherine realized she had a doppelgänger and tried to sell them out to Klaus and if it hadn’t been Katherine, it would have been another vampire.

 

No matter what, she always ends up here with perpetually _nothing_ to show for her effort. Not even a fucking thank you and she’s not so sure there’s any one person she can blame for it except maybe Klaus.

 

She notices that someone is suddenly looming over her and when she looks up, she recognizes Kol.

 

“The little Bennett witch,” he says softly. He looks amused and Bonnie knows that that doesn’t bode well for her.

 

“What do you want?” she asks flatly. She had meant to sound tough, like she used to when people (namely Damon) went out of their way to bother her. Instead, she just sounds exhausted and, well, she is.

 

“I think it’s about time we have a little chat. Care to join me for a drink?” He gestures to the _Mystic Grille_ which lay across the street.

 

She just gives him an ‘ _you’ve got to be kidding me’_ look, but doesn’t respond.

 

“Come now, Bennett, I’m trying to be polite here, but if I have to be forceful, I will be,” Kol responds, retaining his eerily pleasant demeanor.

 

“If you’re trying to intimidate me, stop,” Bonnie says flatly. “I’ve faced down things just as scary as you, if not more.”

 

“Ah, sure, sure…but have you faced them without your powers?”

 

Her green eyes widen slightly.

 

“I’ve been keeping tabs on _everything_ that’s been happening in this town. I know about Jeremy’s little hunter problem, the cure for vampirism, how you’re little pathetic little group is trying to find the cure for vampirism…and your lack of magic.” He pauses. “Now, if you would like to avoid an ugly scene, then why don’t we go have that drink?”

 

Bonnie resists the urge to smirk. He clearly doesn’t know that Bonnie had found a way to practice magic again and she certainly wasn’t going to spoil the surprise until she had the opportune moment.

 

“I’m underage.”

 

“So?”

 

“So, you don’t think that people would be eyeballing me drinking in public in this tiny town where everyone knows everyone? Especially when my father just became mayor?”

 

He actually rolls his eyes at her. “Please, we both know that no one in this town gives a damn about underage drinking.”

 

She glares at him and lets out a sigh as she stands up and follows him to the _Grille._

 

“What do you want to talk about?” she says, ignoring the shot of what she thinks is tequila that is placed in front of her.

 

“So straightforward and to the point. That’s no fun, darling.”

 

“You clearly want something, so _spit it out,_ ” Bonnie snapped.

 

“Fine then,” he said shortly and suddenly is saccharine disposition is gone and she wonders if she preferred that to this more menacing one. “What I brought you here to talk about was the cure.”

 

“The cure? You mean, the one for vampirism?”

 

“Yes, the cure for vampirism,” he says condescendingly.

 

“What about it?” She asks, ignoring his tone.

 

“Don’t allow them to have it.”

 

_What?_

“What makes you think I could stop them if I wanted to—which I don’t? I magicless, remember?” She asks.

 

He begins to laugh and it only unnerves her more.

 

“You honestly don’t know do you? Why do you even waste your time helping them, again?” He doesn’t wait for her response. “The only way the cure can be unlocked is through a Bennett witch and, while you’re not the only Bennett witch out there, you’re the most convenient and probably the only one that would even consider it.”

 

“And what if I want them to have the cure?”

 

His smile widens and his eyes narrow even more. “Don’t you know? Everything has a consequence to it, _especially_ magic. Haven’t you been wondering what the consequence for the cure would be? What the cure would entail?”

 

Truthfully, she has. She’s not stupid and there’s no denying that it’s suspicious that the cure is apparently heavily buried and it seemed to take so much to get to it. There has to be a reason why a witch would try to keep it out of reach.

 

“What do you know about Silas?”

 

“Silas?” She remembers the cautionary tale that Shane once. “What does he have to do with anything?”

 

He laughs again. “My, they certainly keep you far out of the loop. Getting the cure means releasing Silas.”

 

“What? How would you know that?”

 

“Your little professor friend told me…right before I killed him, of course.”

 

 _He doesn’t know that he didn’t really kill Shane. Well, at least there’s something else going my way. Play along,_ she reminds herself, hardening her expression.

 

Kol leans in even closer to her and she can smell the tequila on his breath. “Trust me, little witch. You do not want Silas on the loose. It would literally be hell on Earth.”

 

“And why should I believe you?” She asks, not changing her expression.

 

“I think a better question would be: Can you really risk it? Of course I could be lying to you, which I’m not, but what if I’m right? Is finding a cure really worth it if you all end up dead, anyway?”

 

“Enough of this,” Bonnie says. She hops off the bar stool and turns to leave, but Kol grabs onto her wrist. She considers burning his hand, but she’s not sure if it’s a good idea to let him know she has her magic back yet.

 

“I mean it, Bonnie, you can’t afford to not trust me right now.” She notices that this is the first time he’s used her name.

 

“I can’t exactly afford to trust you, either,” she counters.

 

“I’m making an effort to stop what will happen in the least messy manner, but I will kill you if I have to,” he tells her and she certainly doesn’t doubt it for a second.

 

“Wow. I wish I could say that that’s the first time someone’s wanted me to trust them and then tells me they’ll kill me, but it’s actually not,” she replies dryly.

 

“I’m being honest with you,” he says in rebuttal. “Which is certainly more than you can say for your so-called friends.”

 

She just glares at him.

 

“Think about it,” he tells her as he suddenly lets go of her wrist. “But don’t take too long.” He smirks again before picking up the tequila she didn’t touch and tosses it back.

 

And Bonnie leaves the _Mystic Grille_ feeling a little more than dumbfounded. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to those who read, reviewed, etc.! I really appreciate it!
> 
> I’ll be straight: This chapter…I don’t think I’d call it a filler because I felt that it was necessary, but it’s a rehash of 4x11 (with a few extra things) that digs deeper into some character thoughts because, that episode perfectly set up where I’ve been planning to take this fic, but I feel that it’s important to delve into the character’s mindsets first.
> 
> Oh, and before I forget, the title of this fic comes from a Massive Attack song that goes by the same name. I’ve mostly listen to Massive Attack, Florence+the Machine, and Lana Del Rey while writing this fic, so if you’re looking for some music, give it a try! Maybe someday I’ll put a fanmix together.
> 
> Anyway, sorry for the long ass A/N.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Breathe,_ Bonnie reminds herself. _In and out, in and out._

Meditation is supposed to help her control the Expression magic, yet she feels on edge all the time and she’s pretty sure she has reason to be. 

Shane assured her that if she could control the Expression magic, then everything would be fine, but Bonnie still has this nagging feeling. And if anything Kol said has even a grain of truth to it, then it seems like she can’t exactly trust Shane either.

 _What reason has he given you to not trust him?_ She asks herself. And the first thing she thinks of is how she almost killed April that night at school. Shane clearly knows how volatile Expression could be and he never gave her a proper warning and it makes her wonder what else he hasn’t given her full disclosure on.

“You know, just because your eyes are closed doesn’t mean your meditating,” he says, his voice cutting through her rampant thoughts. Her eyes snap open to meet his. “Come on, use your breath to calm your nerves,” he encourages her.

“So now I can’t even meditate right?” Bonnie replies dryly. “What else can I fail at?”

“Bonnie, you didn’t fail,” he tells her in what she’s sure is supposed to be a reassuring tone. To say she didn’t find it very reassuring would be an understatement.

“I nearly killed April,” she says. She wonders how many times she has to repeat that to Shane before he finally seems to understand it. His flippancy about it is unnerving to her.

 _Maybe he’s just relieved that he’s still alive,_ she tries to reason. _Kol is just trying to get you to question things so that he can keep playing whatever sick game he’s setting up._

“Almost, Bonnie,” he tells her. “Actually killing her would have been failing. You got more like a D-.” He has a little smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. Bonnie used to find his easy demeanor comforting and enjoyable, but now…she can’t help but feel weary. Cracking jokes about her nearly committing manslaughter aren’t amusing.

“This isn’t funny!” Bonnie snaps. “All of the sudden I have more power than ever and I can’t control it!” She looks down and realizes that she lit a candle. _I can’t even control the most basic magic!_

“Bonnie,” Shane says calmly, reaching to take her hand. She almost jerks away immediately. “Look at me.” She does. “I’m here with you. There’s nothing to worry about. You’re strong, you’re focused. You’re in complete control.”

And just like that, her worries and fears dissipate instantly. “You’re here with me,” she finds herself repeating. “I’m in complete control.”

The moment is short-lived when Sheriff Forbes suddenly busts through the door, one of her deputies on her heels.

“Bonnie, you need to go,” Sheriff Forbes says.

Bonnie just stands up, a bit stunned.

“What the hell are you doing?” Shane asks, his calm demeanor suddenly gone.

“We need to ask you a few questions,” Sheriff Forbes replies as her deputy handcuffs Shane.

“I’m sure I can answer without the handcuffs,” he replies, laughing a bit. It seems like he’s always laughing, always enjoying himself even when things are going wrong. “This isn’t even your jurisdiction.”

 _That’s Mystic Falls for you. To hell with federal guidelines; we make up our own laws,_ Bonnie almost says aloud, but stops herself. No sense in making the situation even worse.

“Wait, why are you doing this?” Bonnie asks. She can’t think of a single reason why they would take Shane into custody.

“That’s something you need to ask your dad,” Sheriff Forbes replies before following her deputy out of the room, leaving a confused Bonnie in her wake.

 

* * *

 

 

Just because he had left the Bennett witch to think some things over didn’t mean that he plans on lying still. The witch may be important to everything, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other key players for him to get out of the way. Like the hunter.

He remembers Rebekah telling him that Jeremy and the eldest Salvatore were currently working on growing the mark at some remote lakehouse.

It doesn’t take him long to get there and he can smell blood in the air.

_Seems like Nik’s been mass-reproducing vampires again._

There weren’t a lot of places for vampires to hide from the day, making things much easier for him than they already were.

When he finds them, he quickly and efficiently kills every last one of them and grabs a bottle of whiskey and waits for Damon and Jeremy.

It doesn’t take them much longer and he enjoys their confusion for a bit before revealing his presence.

“I confess, I did it,” he says, striding into the freezer with his bottle of liquor still in hand and an amused smirk on his face. “Sorry about the mess. It was a little too crowded in here. I think it’s about time we had a little chat.” He shoots back more whiskey. “Care for a drink?” He asks pleasantly, holding the bottle up in offering.

“He’s underage and I don’t like you,” the eldest Salvatore snaps.

If Kol didn’t think it beneath him, he’d be rolling his eyes right now.

“You know, with your zeal to find the cure, you risk waking someone very dangerous,” he says, choosing to cut straight to the point.

“You mean Silas.”

Kol narrows his eyes. “What do you know of him?”

“Nothing. Don’t want to. Not our problem,” Damon replies with a shrug.

Kol finds that he’s half-tempted to just rip out the fool’s spleen right then and there. It certainly wouldn’t be any great loss to the world. Maybe he’d do that later.

“Isn’t it?” He then proceeds to launch into and explanation of how he learned about Silas in the first place.  He has a feeling he’s just wasting his time with these morons and sure enough, he’s right.

“We’re not going to call off our search just because you’ve been told one too many scary stories,” Damon replies mockingly.

Kol pushes him out of the way, not deigning to respond to him.

“Jeremy, we were mates in Colorado. You’re a smart lad. Why not call off this imbecilic treasure hunt?”

It would be so much easier to have the boy killed, but he knows that he’d have an even more difficult time getting the witch on his side if he did. He remembers how Jeremy would often talk of Bonnie in Denver.

“I don’t think so, mate,” Jeremy replies dryly, keeping his crossbow pointed at the Original.

 _Oh well,_ Kol shrugs it off. _Gave it my best shot, I suppose._

“Well, I don’t fancy having to deal with the Hunter’s Curse for the next century or so...I guess I can just rip off your arms.”

Damon bulrushes Kol, giving Jeremy time to get out of there. 

 _Idiot,_ Kol thinks as he easily grabs Damon in a headlock and snaps his neck and lets the body drop to the ground.

_Might as well have a bit of fun with this._

* * *

 

“You’re accusing me of mass murder? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?” Bonnie hears Shane say over the video feed.

“This is Mystic Falls. It’s actually one of the least ridiculous things I’ve heard,” Sherriff Forbes replies dryly.

 _She’s got a point, I guess,_ Bonnie thinks. _It still seems a bit far-fetched, though, even for this town._

“He told me that Pastor Young came to him for help,” Bonnie says, turning to her father exasperatedly. “He was crazy.”

“He was grief-stricken and Shane took advantage of him.”

“And convinced him to blow up his house with twelve other council members inside? I don’t think so,” she replies.

 _He can hypnotize people,_ a little voice in her head reminded her. _And if it works on witches, then it would be even easier on humans._

She mulls it over for a moment. Shane wouldn’t tell someone to kill himself and twelve other people. Would he?

 _He didn’t exactly warn you that you could easily kill someone with your new powers,_ she remembers.

“I’ve met people like this before, Bonnie,” her father says, snapping her out of her reverie. “They’re fast-talking, charismatic, and manipulative, and like to prey and the weak-minded.”

“You mean like me?” Bonnie asks, a bit of venom in her voice. She almost wants to ask him what he would even know. It’s not like he’s been around enough to even begin to fathom the things she’s been through. “That’s why you brought him in.”

“We brought him in because of what April Young told us. Rebekah Mikaelson confirmed it. He confessed to her.”

“Rebekah Mikaelson?” Bonnie asks in disbelief. “Really? And you’re just going to take her word for it? While you’ve been gone, she’s tried to kill my friends.” She leaves out how the vampire actually did kill Elena. She knows her dad knows about the presence of vampires in the town, but she’s not sure if her dad knows about Elena and Caroline or not. “Also, her brother killed Mrs. Lockwood. She’s not exactly what you can call trustworthy.”

“Bonnie—”

“I’m going in there,” she cuts in, standing up. “Unless you think I’m too weak-minded,” she replies before her father gets a chance to protest.

“I think your dad’s confused about the format of a parent-teacher conference,” Shane says jokingly when she walks into the room.

It bothers her how he doesn’t seemed at all concerned about how he’s just been accused of mass-murder. She’s sure her father and Sherriff Forbes would have no problem locking him up and throwing away the key, fair trial or no.

“According to them, Rebekah says you confessed,” Bonnie tells him as she takes a seat across from him. “She’s not exactly reliable, though, so…”

He leans forward, his hand scratching his cheek a bit to hid his lip’s movement. “You know, she’s actually not lying about it.”

And Bonnie feels her world begin to crash down around her.

 

* * *

 

 

Compelling Salvatore to go after Jeremy had been easy enough, but he knows that he doesn’t have much time before Nik finds out. 

 _And boy, will he be furious,_ Kol thinks with a smile.

He knows there’s no time to waste, however. His dagger-happy brother would be coming after him soon and Kol plans on collecting all the daggers before then.

He’d also learned some valuable information from Salvatore as well.

It turns out the witch found a way to use magic again and because of it the professor wasn’t as dead as he should have been.

He’s impressed that the witch had managed to so easily keep the information from him. It’s gratifying to know that he was right in thinking she had more intelligence than the others.

_And if she’s smart enough to value her life, she’ll come around to my way of thinking._

* * *

 

“I asked my father to give us more time,” Bonnie says hollowly as she steps back into the interrogation room. She shuts the camera in front of him off. “You can talk.”

“You sure about that?” Shane replies pointing up at the camera attached to the ceiling.

“I’m not you. I don’t lie.” Her face is stony when she sits down across from him again.

“I was always going to tell you,” he replies, still remaining calm. For a moment, she envisions herself clawing that stillness off his face. “I was just worried about how you react.”

 _Are you kidding me?_ She wonders. She almost reaches out to slap him across the face.

“Bad. I react bad to murder.”

“I’m not a killer, Bonnie. Pastor Young—”

“I already heard this,” she interrupts, remaining outwardly stoic. “Skip to the part where you had him massacre nearly a dozen people.”

“It wasn’t a massacre,” he tells her. “It was a necessary ritual to raise Silas to get the cure your friends so desperately want.”

Her heart stops for a  beat upon a hearing Silas’ name. No one ever told her that the cure was with Silas.

 _Except Kol,_ she remembers. She wonders what else he was right about now. _Damon or Stefan probably knew about raising Silas too and probably didn’t even think to tell me._

“If my friends knew that people had to die—” _They wouldn’t care. Stefan and Damon would burn the world down for Elena, Elena’s to consumed by the sire-bond to even put up an argument against Damon, and Jeremy’s hunter instincts are slowly driving him mad._

She starts thinking that maybe Stefan and Damon even knew about Shane orchestrating these massacres.

For a moment, the world seems to spin before her and she feels a rage like never before begin to fill her.

“Silas will bring them back.”

“You’re crazy,” Bonnie replies, shaking her head. She needs to get out of there. _Now._

“I’m not crazy. I’m just passionate,” Shane replies, a smile on his face.

“You are full on crazy.” She gets up from the table and goes to leave.

“Do you remember our first session? Where you told me how doing magic caused your Grams pain?”

Her hand freezes on the door knob.

“Aren’t you curious about what’s happening to her right now?” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Wouldn’t you want to see here again.”

Despite everything in her telling her that he’s manipulating her again and she needs to leave and never look back, she finds herself closing the door and turning back towards Shane.

“So, what you’re saying is that Silas would bring Grams back from the dead?” She crosses her arms in front of her, digging her nails into them. “Don’t play on my guilt, Shane,” she says through clenched teeth.

“I’m not playing on anything.”

He’s still so goddamn calm and it only makes her angrier and angrier.

“You’re reckless use of magic—”

“Don’t.”

“Is the reason those spirits are torturing her on the other side—”

“Don’t,” she says again.

“Hurting her again and again and again.”

“I said don’t,” she screams. And just like that, the tidal wave of rage comes crashing down and all she can think of his hurting him.

He yells out in pain, a sickening crunching sound emanating from his hand.

“You can’t stop, can you?” He asks. “All this power you’re feeling…you actually _like_ it, don’t you?”

She feels her lips twist into a demented smile and before she thinks about it, she has him yelling in pain again.

“Look at yourself, Bonnie,” he repeats over and over again like a mantra.

“Bonnie, what are you doing?!” Her father yells, suddenly bursting into the room.

She looks at him and feels a whole new wave of anger. He’s never had any problem leaving her to her own devices, so why not now?

“Get out!” She snaps, tossing the glass of water down in front of him and creating a fire to prevent him from entering the room any further.

“You can’t reason with her, Mayor. She’s lost control.”

“Bonnie, baby, baby.” She doesn’t think she’s ever seen her father so afraid and she can't even find it in her to give a damn about it. “Please…”

His words have no effect on her.

“Do something!” He shouts at Shane desperately.

“Bonnie, look at me,” Shane says.

She looks at him.

“Now take a deep breath. I’m right here with you. You are in complete control.”

And just like that, she feels the rage leave her.

And she feels utterly empty once again.

 

* * *

 

 

Finding the daggers proves to be simple enough and he wonders if it was even possible for Nik to put them in an even more obvious place. Except, there’s one missing. He assumes that Nik probably carries it on his person.

 _Ready to dagger one of us at any given moment,_ he thinks bitterly.

“Going somewhere?” he hears his sister’s voice ask as she comes to stand in front of him. “I would if I were you; Nik’s not too pleased right now.”

He smiles at her mockingly. “I told him I would touch the kid and I didn’t.”

He moves to walk past her and stops when he suddenly feels a dagger poking in his back.

He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised by it, yet he still can’t help but feel at least a little betrayed. He’d come to expect these sorts of things from Nik, but never Bekah.

“You’d really dagger me?” He asks stonily.

“If I do, Damon’s compulsion would end,” Rebekah tells him.

“And then you’d be no better than Niklaus; daggering siblings the second they don’t agree with you,” he spits venomously. He decides to go straight for her heartstrings. “Look at what our family’s become. Why do you think Eljah won’t show his face? He’s _disgusted_ by us.” He pauses. “This cure is ruining us and the damned things hasn’t even been found yet.”

“This family was ruined long before we learned of the cure,” she replies.

He carefully grips the white oak stake in his hand. Rebekah clearly wasn’t going to stand down anytime soon and he certainly wasn’t going to stand there and wait to be daggered by her.

“Kol!" She gasps in surprise, staring in horror at the stake pointed at her heart.

“I won’t let you raise Silas.”

Before either can make a move, though, Nik is there, shoving him away from Rebekah and into one of his precious paintings.

“Enough of this foolishness. Put it down, Kol,” his older brother says.

Kol may be extremely volatile, but he’s certainly no fool. He knows he doesn’t stand a chance against both Rebekah and Niklaus and he sure as hell doesn’t need to spend yet another century in a box while these idiots bring about the end of the world.

In hindsight, he realizes that he should have counted on his siblings being a bigger problem than he originally thought. It doesn’t make any difference, though, because he’ll find a way to make up for his miscalculations.

He knows he can’t wait any longer for the witch to come to him. He’ll give her one more chance and if she still decides to foolishly insist and getting the cure for her “friends”, he’ll have to dispose of her.

 _It’d be such a waste, though._ He quickly shrugs it off, though. _Oh well. Some actions are just necessary._

* * *

 

Later that night, Bonnie’s sitting at _the Grille_ with her dad. She feels emotionally drained and she has a feeling that it won’t go away any time soon.

“I guess I owe you an apology,” she tells her dad.

“You don’t owe me anything, Bonnie. I didn’t want to be right.” He pauses as if he’s choosing his next words carefully. “I’m going to get you some help.”

“What? Why?” Bonnie asks with a frown on her face. Maybe she had gone a bit overboard back in the interrogation room, but she doesn’t think it was _that_ bad. Not bad enough for her father to want to check her into some sort of magical rehab, anyway.

Her father gives her a look that tells her he’s just confused. “Why? Are you kidding me? You lost complete control back there.

“I was angry,” Bonnie admits. “But I knew what I was doing the entire time.” At least she _thinks_ she did. No, she knew. She wanted someone to finally hurt as much as she did.

“Shane said—”

“I thought we just established that we can’t trust them,” Bonnie interrupts her father. “He _did_ orchestrate a mass murder after all.”

“I know what I saw!” Her father snaps. Bonnie can’t remember the last time he’s looked this upset. “I just witnessed my daughter doing dangerous magic! And the fact that you think it’s not even a problem convinces me that you do need help.”

She wants to say something back. Make a comment about how she’s done just fine without anyone help, but something catches her eyes first. She looks over her father’s shoulder and sees Kol standing near the doorway. After making brief eye contact with her, he turns and walks out in a clear invitation to follow him.

“Look, Dad,” Bonnie says. “I’m really tired, so can I just go home and talk about this tomorrow?”

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s go.”

“I was hoping for some time alone…to think, you know?” It’s not technically a lie. She does have a lot of things that she needs to think about. “Besides, we drove our own cars, anyway.”

She can tell by her father’s expression that he doesn’t want to leave her alone for even a second. She feels like she’s being treated like someone with a drug problem and it makes her angry.

He left her alone and shipped her off to some relatives after Grams died. He’d left her alone all those times she’d nearly died to save everyone else. _Now_ he suddenly chooses to play the part of concerned parent?

“Alright,” he says finally, still reluctant. “I have a few loose ends to tie up at the office, but give me a call to let me know you got home safe, okay?”

“Of course, Dad,” she replies with a smile that she hopes doesn’t look tight or frustrated.

When she finally exits _the Grille,_ she sees Kol waiting for her outside, casually leaning up against the brick wall of the building. She slowly approaches him, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“Have you given what I’ve said any thought, darling?” He asks her with that slightly mocking smirk he always seems to wear.

“I’m not saying I trust you,” Bonnie says, raising her chin defiantly and looking him right in the eyes. She thinks that she’s probably going to end up regretting this later, but at the very least she thinks she should maybe hear him out. Especially if the situation is as drastic as he’s making it out to be. “But I want to hear what you know about Silas.”

He looks at her and he sees that something in her has changed. He thinks that perhaps the professor foolishly laid all his cards out on the table once again.

There’s a deep-seated rage in those big green eyes of hers and it seems like it’ll break out like a tidal wave at any moment. He can’t wait to see what exactly she does with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, this chapter was more of an in-depth rehash of 4x11, so I’m sorry if it was boring. But the next chapter should be more interesting since there will be a lot of things happening like Elena’s not-so-genius plan to kill Kol and Bonnie finding out about Kol compelling Damon to kill Jeremy and confronting Kol about it.
> 
> The main thing I was trying to get at in this chapter was to show that Bonnie definitely has trust issues now and even some abandonment issues.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

They end up in Bonnie’s car, heading towards her house. She knows if she isn’t home when her father comes in, it’ll be more trouble than it’s worth. Besides, there’s a very good chance that someone would have seen her talking to Kol since _the Grille_ is such a public place and that would have caused a whole other set of problems.

“You know,” he says as he fiddles with her radio. “I think my favorite thing about the modern age is that you can have music any time you want.” He grimaces as he comes across a station playing _Call Me Maybe._ “Although, I will say some of the music nowadays is god-awful.”

Bonnie snorts and considers making him stay on that station just to bother him. He ends up settling on an indie rock station and the rest of the drive falls into silence.

When they finally reach her place, she silently exits the car and walks up the pathway to her home.

“Not going to invite me in?” Kol asks as she unlocks the front door.

“Nope,” she replies flatly, stepping inside to turn on the porch lights before coming back out, slamming the door shut behind her and taking a seat on the wicker couch.

“Not even going to offer me a drink?” He sits down next to her, a little too close for comfort.

“Nope.”

“You know, we could at least try to start this venture off more amicably,” Kol tells her, a small grin on his face.

Her expression doesn’t change. “I’ve had a long day and my dad will be home any minute, so let's cut to the chase: tell me about Silas and why you’re so afraid of him. Other than Shane, you’re the only one that really believes he exists.”

“Believe me, darling, I’m far from the only one. Ask just about any witch and they’ll tell you that Silas needs to stay buried.”

“I don’t really know any other witches,” Bonnie admits. She thinks of her cousin Lucy, the only other witch she’s met that hasn’t gotten killed. She’s smart to stay off the grid. Bonnie can’t help but think that it was a bunch of bull when Lucy told her that she belonged right in the middle of things. “They don’t exactly last long in this town.”

“I’ve ran with quite a few witches in my time…in fourteenth century Africa, seventeenth century Haiti, and New Orleans at the turn of the century. I’ve always held witches in the highest regard,” he tells her.

She scoffs. “Please. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that come out of a vampire’s mouth only to have them nearly get me killed, I’d be rich enough to get away from this hellhole and be on a beach sipping margaritas. Besides, flattery isn’t going to get you anywhere with me.”

“It’s not flattery, Bonnie,” he corrects her, still smiling. “It’s honesty. Witches can be quite powerful and if even half of the things I’ve heard about you are true, then it would be stupid of me to try and make an enemy out of you.”

Bonnie looks at him and tries not to smirk. It’s always nice when someone acknowledges her work.

“Shane once told me the story of Silas,” she says, choosing not to respond to that. “Apparently a witch named Qetsiyah helped him find a way to get immortality and when he betrayed her, she buried him alive after killing his lover. Shane ended his tale by saying that he would wreak havoc on the world, but when he talked to me in the interrogation room, he said that Silas would raise the dead.”

He looks at her as if he’s carefully gauging her. “And does that sound like a good thing to you?” He asks her.

“This town has lost a lot of people,” Bonnie tells him. “People that didn’t deserve to die.”

“You know, according to the Bible, the raising of the dead happens when it’s time for the world to come to an end,” Kol tells her.

“The Bible?” She asks with a raised eyebrow. She’s never really been into religion. She’s barely even had time to understand Wicca because of all the disasters in her life.  “So, what? Unearthing Silas will cause the Biblical apocalypse?” She can’t help but scoff a little at the thought.

“You shouldn’t be so skeptical,” he tells her. “All religions have at least a grain of truth in them.”

“And you would know that how?”

“Because they all have similarities.” He leans in closer to her and she can feel his breath on her face. She doesn’t move. “The Vikings believed in Ragnarök, meaning “twilight of the gods.” Part of it included the dead rising and causing widespread despair. Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrian so many religions believe that with the end of the world comes with the resurrection of the dead.”

“Are you trying to convince me that Silas is trying to begin a zombie apocalypse?” She asks, laughing a little bit. The thought is just ridiculous…then again, she’s surrounded by vampires and all sorts of other creatures. Maybe it’s not so ridiculous.

“I didn’t say that, although, I wouldn’t rule it out as a possibility. What I am saying is that the dead coming back to life on a massive scale never means something good.”

“Okay, so we don’t want the dead brought back to life,’ Bonnie says a bit exasperated. “Is that really all there is to it?”

He looks at her as if he’s searching her for something. “The world’s lack so much faith these days.”

 _Great, now the thousand year old psychopath is going to give me a lecture on faith. Yep, deciding to hear him out was definitely a smart move, Bonnie,_ she thinks, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

“And?”

“And faith teaches you what you should fear.”

“Look, I get what you’re saying about the whole ‘dead people coming back to life’ thing, I do. It’s a valid thing to be freaked out about…except you’re a thousand year old walking dead man. _Literally._ So, sorry if I’m skeptical when _you_ talk about it.”

“Fine, put away the concept of raising the dead and what that could do for a moment and think of Silas himself. What do you think he’ll do when he’s raised?”

“I don’t know,” Bonnie snaps. “And apparently neither do you.

“Think of it this way: I spent a century in a coffin and to say that I was angry when Elijah finally brought me back would be an understatement,” Kol tells her. “Silas has been buried for over _two-thousand years._ Trust me; he’ll have some major pent up rage to release.”

“Why are you so eager to save the world?” Bonnie asks with narrowed eyes. “You’re not exactly the hero type.”

“No, I am not. But why would I want the world to end?” He counters. “I enjoy the world just as it is now and I like living forever even more.”

She looks at him silently. His logic is surprisingly sound and for some reason that makes her even more on edge.

“Some things are just better left buried, Bonnie.”

 

* * *

 

When Caroline had asked her to fill in for her decorating the dance so that the blonde could tend to Tyler, Bonnie hadn’t really wanted to. However, she knows that given what’s happened to Tyler, he needs Caroline, so she agrees.

Of course, none of her other friends bother to show up, so she’s stuck with a handful of other students that she never even talks to.

When Elena calls her, Bonnie is currently waging war against the damn air tank to fill the balloons. She thinks that her fingers may never uncramp from having to tie them all.

“Where are you?” Elena asks.

“Filling in for Caroline at the decade dance prep,” she replies. “Where none of you showed up.”

“I know, I’m sorry, but Jeremy is under house arrest because Kol is trying to kill him and—”

“Wait, Kol is trying to kill Jeremy?!” Bonnie almost screeches, but quickly calms herself down when people start giving her strange looks. She feels anger begin to boil in her veins at how Kol conveniently left out that bit of information last night.

She quickly ties off one last balloon before leaving the gym. This definitely isn’t a conversation that other people need to overhear.

“I’m sorry, I thought I told you…things have just been so crazy,” Elena sighed. “Kol wants Jeremy dead so he can’t complete his mark and he compelled Damon to kill Jeremy so now Damon has to be locked up in his own basement until we solve this.”

“And do you have any plan on how you’re going to ‘solve this’?” Bonnie asks. She has a feeling that any plan Elena’s come up with won’t be good.

“I want Jeremy to kill Kol,” Elena says.

“You want him to what?!” She really hopes she hasn’t heard her friend right.

“If Jeremy kills Kol then Damon’s compulsion ends. Plus, all the vampires in his bloodline would die too, completing Jeremy’s mark,” Elena replies, clearly proud of her plan.

“Wait…you want to pitch Jeremy up against an _Original_?” Bonnie asks dumbfounded. She’s used to the foolhardy and even insane plans her friends always come up with (she’s always the one who has to come in and fix it for them), but she has a feeling that this one’s about to take the cake.

“I know it won’t be easy, but I think we can do it if we all work together.”

“Okay, let’s say by some miracle we succeed and we do kill Kol…what do you propose we do about Klaus and Rebekah?” Bonnie asks. She almost wants to pull the phone away and stare at it in disbelief. “What do you think is going to happen when they find out what you’re planning?”

“Klaus wants me to have the cure so he can make his hybrids with my blood. As for Rebekah, I’m having Matt and Stefan working on daggering her,” Elena replies, sounding more confident than Bonnie can remember her being in a long time.

“And you think Klaus will be okay with his brother being dead as long as he has your blood to make hybrids?” Saying that Klaus treats his siblings like dirt would be an understatement, but Bonnie’s pretty sure that he wouldn’t’ be okay with Kol being permanently dead. However, she also gets the feeling that she’s not going to be able to talk Elena out of this plan and she’s not exactly sure what she can do about it.

“Why do you sound like you’re so against this, Bonnie?” Elena asks. Bonnie wonders if the accusing tone is just her paranoid imagination.

“I just don’t think that you’ve thought this through all the way, Elena,” Bonnie replies, hoping she sounds patient and not like she’s having an inner breakdown.

“Of course I have!” Elena replies. She sounds exasperated now. “What other option do we have, Bonnie? We can’t keep Damon locked up forever!”

 _Why not?_ Bonnie almost asks, but she bites her tongue. Thanks to the sire bond, Elena’s been more than a little touchy when it came to people being against Damon and that’s just an argument that would have to wait till later.

“Look, I’m going to head over to you now, so we can talk about this more,” Bonnie says as she walks out of the half-decorated gym, hoping the Caroline doesn’t notice that there’s only eighty-nine balloons instead of the hundred that were demanded.

“Fine.” The tone of Elena’s voice let’s Bonnie know that she isn’t going to change her mind any time soon.

There’s the sound of running water and a sudden scream.

“Elena?” Bonnie asks. “Elena?! What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” the brunette replies, breathing heavily. “I think there’s something in the water.”

“I’ll be at your place as soon as possible,” Bonnie says. She has a feeling she knows just who tampered with the water’s supply. She hangs up the phone and quickly dials her father.

“What did you do to the town’s water supply?” She asks, cutting straight to the chase once her father picks up.

“Vervain.”

“You put vervain in the water supply?” She repeats.

“I’m surprised no one’s thought about it before,” her father says calmly, “But, yes, I did.”

“Where did you even get it?” she asks. Last she’s checked, Damon and Stefan had control over the town’s vervain supply.

“I have my sources. I’m also reinstating a curfew and cancelling all town events.”

“There’s a dance tonight,” Bonnie reminds her father with a frown.

“Not anymore.”

“Are you serious?!”

“Honey, I’m trying to protect you; not punish you,” he explains. “It’s my job to take care if this town now.”

She feels anger turning in her stomach and she almost wants to yell at him. He couldn’t be bothered to be around for _months_ on end and now he decides to step in? It just isn’t okay with her.

“No, Dad, it’s _my_ job and I’ve been doing just fine without you getting involved.”

“Really?” He replies skeptically. “Do you want me to list off the names of everyone who’s died in your senior year alone? Please come home _now._ It’s time for a family meeting.”

She doesn’t respond, clicking her phone off and glaring at it. Her day has just quickly become one giant clusterfuck. She quickly dials Kol’s number that she programed in her phone last night.

While it rings, she stands there impatiently tapping her foot. To say she’s displeased would be a major understatement.

“Hello, darling,” he says cheerfully when he picks up the phone. She has no doubt that if he were standing in front of her, she’d be putting him in a world of hurt right now.

“Elena wants you dead now,” she informs him.

“Does she?” He doesn’t sound all that concerned.

“Yeah, and I’m sure you know that I know why,” Bonnie says through gritted teeth. “I’m curious, what sort of reaction where you expecting from me when I found out that you were trying to kill Jeremy?”

“Hey, I politely asked him to back down from the cure and he wouldn’t listen,” Kol responds. “He refused, so I decided to take him out of the game.”

“No. This isn’t how this is going to work. I may not agree my friends right now, but I’m not willing to let you kill or hurt them,” she replies adamantly.

“And you think they’d extend the same courtesy to you?” He replies. “May I remind you what the Salvatores did your mother?”

“May I remind you that Elijah was the one who spurred that on in the first place? Look, we can talk in circles about this, but the fact remains that I’m not going to let you start offing my friends, so now I need to fix _your_ mess.”

“And just how do you plan on doing that?” He almost sounds amused.

“I have an idea,” Bonnie says with a sigh. “But you’re not going to like it.”

“Oh?”

“Give me a dagger and I’ll dagger you and then undagger you. It’ll end Damon’s compulsion and get the Gilberts off of your back…for now at least.”

“And you expect me to believe that you’ll really undagger me?” He replies skeptically. “I don’t think so.”

“And do you have a better idea?” She asks, exasperated. “One that doesn’t involve any of my friends getting killed and/or maimed?” She adds quickly before he can respond. “Elena wants you dead and what Elena wants, Elena always gets.”

“Where are you now?”

“At school. My dad wants me home, so get here quick so we can sort this out.”

It takes him less than five minutes to get there and he isn’t alone. Next to him stands a tall black man with a solemn look on his face. Bonnie’s positive he’s a vampire.

“This is Henri,” Kol says, gesturing towards him. “An old friend of mine and an insurance policy to make sure you’ll undagger me.”

Not saying anything, Henri simply gives her a curt nod.

Kol reaches into his jacket and pulls a dagger out along with a small vial of white oak ash. She reaches to take it from him and he suddenly pulls them out of her reach.

“Run me through with your plan first,” he tells her.

“Elena wants you dead because your stupid ass decided to go after her brother,” she begins. “She’s going to try and lure you somewhere and incapacitate you and get the white oak stake from you.” She gives him a once-over. “Please tell me you’re not actually carrying it on you right now.”

“Trust me. It’s hidden where no one would ever think to look,” he supplies.

“Don’t tell me you hid it in a soap dish,” Bonnie tells him dryly. Upon the weird look her gives her she tells him, “That’s where Damon once hid the moonstone. Anyway, Elena wants to make killing you a group effort, so she’s bound to call me to make sure you stay down long enough for Jeremy to stake you, so—”

“And they think you stand a chance against me?” he laughs.

“Care to find out right now?” she asks with a raised eyebrow. He doesn’t respond. “Then quit interrupting me.”

He still looks amused, but motions for her to continue.

“So, I’m going to tell them that you attacked me right here in the school and while I had you on the ground, I searched you and only found these,” she says, gesturing towards the dagger and ashes in his hand.

“And why wouldn’t you have used it on my right here?” Kol asks skeptically.

“Because maybe when Elena decides to ambush you, you’ll be carrying the stake then. But you won’t be, so I’ll come in and save everyone’s lives by daggering you.”

“It’s about as solid of a plan as we can come up with right now,” Kol says after thinking for a moment. “I’ve got to admit I’m curious about why you’re so eager to save Jeremy, though. From what he told me in Denver, he broke your heart.”

She looks at him with narrowed eyes. “You clearly don’t have the emotional capacity to understand a damn thing, but what Jeremy did to me doesn’t mean I want him dead.”

He looks at her as if he’s mulling her words over and his lips curl up slightly before he shrugs and says, “Fine. He’s still going to be a problem in the future, though.”

“ _I’ll_ deal with Jeremy _my_ way,” Bonnie snaps. He rolls his eyes at her.

“Don’t screw up,” he says, handing her the dagger and ash.

“Don’t kill or maim anyone,” she counters, taking them from him. She glances over at Henri who seems amused by the whole exchange, but he still remains silent. It’s unnerving.

“Time to give Elena a call…and I better get home to my dad before he blows a gasket,” Bonnie says with a sigh. She walks away, hoping that she’s doing the right thing.

* * *

 

 _Where the hell is it?_ She could have sworn she put her cell phone down on the foyer table when she got home and now she can’t find it. And she’s searched for it _everywhere._

Her father hadn’t been home when she got there and she doesn’t have time to wait around from him just because he suddenly decides he wants to act like a parent.

She hears her dad walk in the room as she’s putting the couch cushions back in place.

“I need to get to Elena’s. Have you seen my phone?” she asks, turning towards him.

He holds up her phone and car keys.

“I told you; we’re having a family meeting.”

Her jaw drops slightly and she wonders for a moment if this is actually happening at such an inconvenient moment.

“What, have you been reading parenting books or something? We’ve never had a family meeting. Why now?” Bonnie snaps.

“This has gone on far enough,” Rudy says, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Shane told me that you and your magic are a ticking time bomb.”

“And _I_ told you that he was crazy.”

“I lost your mother to witchcraft. I’m not going to stand by and lose you to.”

 _Maybe you should have actually been around then._ Instead she simply says, “It’s my life, not yours.”

They’re interrupted by Jeremy pounding insistently on the glass of her front door.

“Is Bonnie here?” Jeremy asks when her father opens the door.

“She’s busy right now.” He tries to slam the door in the younger Gilbert’s face, but Jeremy forces his way in anyway.

“It’s important,” Jeremy states.

“What’s going on?” Bonnie asks.

“I’ve tried calling you like a hundred times! Kol’s in our house right now with Elena.”

Bonnie knows she certainly doesn’t have time to waste with her father right now. She and Kol may have a plan, but she has no doubt that wouldn’t hesitate to kill Elena if she pushes him far enough.

She looks at her dad and tells him, “I’ve got to go.”

He steps in front of her. “I said ‘no’.

She feels her blood begin to boil again and before she knows what’s happening, the light bulb in the lamp next to the door shatters and sparks fly.

“Stop telling me what to do!” Bonnie snaps and steps around her dad. Another figure suddenly blocks the doorway and for a moment she can hardly believe who it is.

“No one’s going anywhere,” Abby says, looking deadly serious.

“Mom?”

“Abby, please come in,” her father says.

Dumbfounded, Bonnie moves out of the way, allowing Abby to step inside the house.

“What are you doing here? Bonnie finally manages to choke out.

“Your father called me,” Abby informs her. Bonnie realizes that she looks angry. “Who is this Professor Shane? What has he been teaching you?”

She feels Jeremy’s large hand on her shoulder. “Bonnie, we don’t have time for this,” he hisses.

_He’s right. We don’t._

“This is a family matter,” Rudy snaps at him.

Jeremy looks angry when he faces her father. “My sister is in trouble and we need Bonnie’s help.”

“My daughter is _done_ helping Elena Gilbert,” Abby snaps.

Bonnie looks at her mother and she feels that anger begin to rise even more. What right did Abby have to tell her what she does or doesn’t do? All the woman’s ever done is abandon her time and time again and now she wants to play concerned parent along with Rudy? To hell with that.

“Answer my question, Bonnie,” Abby says. “What lies has this professor been feeding you?”

It all happens so quickly that for a moment Bonnie isn’t even sure what happens. Jeremy rushes at Abby, a stake aimed directly at her heart. Abby easily catches his arm.

“Jeremy!” Bonnie shouts, putting her body between his and Abby’s. “What are you doing? That’s my mom!” She takes his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her instead of glaring at Abby. “Jeremy, look at me. Please, calm down. That’s my mom,” she tells him again. The rage slowly leaves Jeremy’s face and she can see an apology written all over it, but she knows that Jeremy needs to get out of here now or the results wouldn’t be pretty.

“Go,” she tells him, gently pushing him out the door. “I’m right behind you, I promise.”

She turns back to her parents and she hopes she can have the quickest “family meeting” in the history of ever.

“You guys wanna talk? Let’s talk.”

* * *

 

It’s almost comical how Elena Gilbert honestly believes that she can play him for a fool.

Even without Bonnie’s forewarning, he still would have been suspicious the second the irritating little doppelganger called him supposedly wanting a truce.

As beneficial as having Bonnie on his side would be, Kol’s certainly not above killing Elena or chopping Jeremy’s arms off.

It would definitely be more entertaining than simply engaging in small talk and making drinks with Elena.

Playing fool to a bunch of fools is just boring.

* * *

 

“Dad needs to mind his own business. He had no right to call you here.”

“It’s not just your father, Bonnie. Witches talk,” Abby tells her.

Bonnie wonders exactly which witches would be talking. Last she checked, Abby’s vampire status meant she had no connection to the spirits and it’s not like there’s any other witches around Mystic Falls that would know what’s been happening.

“Look, I get that my new way of practicing magic is unconventional,” Bonnie tells her mother, trying to remain calm, hoping that she could reason with her parents. “But I have a handle on it. I promise.”

“That’s not what Shane said,” Rudy interjected.

She looks at her father disbelievingly.

“He’s sitting in a jail cell, under investigation for large-scale manslaughter and you’re just going to take his word for it?!”

“I’ve warned you about dark magic, Bonnie!” Abby almost yells.

“But it’s not dark magic! It’s called Expression! And since the spirits decided to cut me off, I needed it to keep using magic. I get that you haven’t been around for a while, Abby, but things haven’t exactly gotten less deadly in Mystic Falls!” Bonnie snaps back.

Abby looks hurt, but Bonnie can’t even bring herself to care. She’s got bigger issues to deal with. As she goes to walk out on her parents, she feels a rush of air as Abby suddenly stands behind her.

“I’m sorry, baby, but I’m trying to save you.”

Abby’s hand covers her face and suddenly everything goes black.

* * *

 

He’s getting impatient.

If Bonnie doesn’t show up soon, he might rip the doppelganger’s arm off just for the hell of it.

“So we’re officially out of gin,” Elena calls out to him as she reenters the room, holding a bottle of wine. “But, I _think_ this is a good year.”

He turns to Elena with narrowed eyes. “I don’t believe you, you stupid little girl.”

Her eyes widened in horror as Kol lunges for her.

* * *

 

As Bonnie fights to return to consciousness, she hears her parents quietly talking to each other.

“We’re drugging her now?” Rudy asks, clearly not thrilled at the concept.

“We just need to keep her down until I can get some witches here to cleanse her from that poison Shane infected her with,” Abby replies. She sounds overly calm for someone that’s just knocked out their own daughter.

Upon hearing Abby’s plan, Bonnie quickly gets up.

“That’s not going to happen,” she tells them.

“Bonnie,” Abby says searchingly. “We’re your parents. We just want to help you.”

She looks at them both and she feels her rage swelling up before it suddenly breaks out of her in a massive tidal wave.

“WHAT THE HELL MAKES YOU THINK YOU HAVE ANY SAY IN MY LIFE?” she screams at them. “YOU ABANDONED ME! BOTH OF YOU! AND NOW YOU SUDDENLY CHOOSE TO WALK INTO MY LIFE AND TELL ME HOW TO LIVE IT? IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY!”

The mortar and pestle in Abby’s hands suddenly crumbles to pieces and crushed herbs rain onto the ground and then Abby suddenly hunches over, crying out in pain.

She didn’t mean to hurt Abby, but she feels just like she felt with Shane in that cell. Angry and betrayed and wanting the people who have hurt her to feel some pain.

“I don’t belong to you and I sure as hell don’t belong to the spirits,” she snaps. “I belong to myself.”

Bonnie walks out, ignoring her parents’ horrified look.

* * *

 

When Bonnie bursts into the Gilbert home, Elena has Kol pinned against the kitchen counter with a meat cleaver and Jeremy is spraying him with vervain spiked water.

She’s almost impressed with how much restraint Kol is showing since she knows for a fact that he could have had Elena and Jeremy dead from the minute he walked in the house. She supposed that means he really is serious about working with her after all.

“Get back!” Bonnie yells as she rushes toward them, dagger in hand. She’s not sure how hard or how easy it is to stab someone in the heart, so she throws all her weight behind it and the impact jars her arm suddenly making it feel numb.

She catches Kol’s eyes as his skin suddenly turns grey and veins begin to protrude from it.

“How did you…?” Elena asks as his body slumps to the ground..

“I found it on him when he attacked me earlier today,” Bonnie explains. “I guess he was planning on using it on Rebekah or something. I would have daggered him right then and there, but I thought that maybe he’d bring the white oak stake with him and you guys would get a clean shot.” She turns to Jeremy. “I’m so sorry, I should have given it to you before you left my place, but I was just so flustered by my parents and then…”

“It’s fine,” Jeremy says. “You still came and saved us.”

Elena bends down and begins checking Kol, rummaging through his jacket, hoping to find the stake on him.

“It’s not there.” The brunette vampire look genuinely baffled.

“What? Where the hell would he have put it?” Jeremy asks.

“I have no idea, but I’ll take care of the body,” Bonnie says. “Put him somewhere where no one will find him and wake him like April did with Rebekah.”

“I still think we should kill him. It’s the quickest, safest way to grow the mark,” Elena says, frowning down at Kol’s body.

“Elena, we don’t know where he put the white oak stake and we have no way of finding that out and the possible fallout from his siblings would be way worse,” Bonnie replies adamantly. “I don’t have my car, so I’ll need to borrow one of yours. I don’t want to tell either of you where I plan on putting him because Klaus and Rebekah can compel it out of you. Witches, however, can’t be compelled.”

Elena frowns, still not happy, but hands Bonnie the keys to her car. Jeremy puts the body in the trunk of Elena’s car. She tries her best to ignore the look of longing on his face. She doesn’t want to think about what they were right now.

It’s not that she hasn’t thought about getting back with Jeremy, but…certain hurts just didn’t go away. She had given Jeremy everything and in the end it simply hadn’t been enough. Maybe things would be different a second time around, but she doesn’t know if she really can give her heart to him like that again without always wondering if when he’s with her he’s thinking of Vicki or Anna and wishing that she was them, but settling for her anyway.

As she drives, she doesn’t see Henri anywhere, but she has no doubt that he was following her, making sure that she didn’t dump Kol’s body off of Wickery Bridge or something.

She drives and drives until she’s almost an hour out of town and pulls off into obscure trail into the woods. As she climbs out of the car to open the trunk, Henri comes to stand beside her with a sudden rush of air.

Bonnie looks down at Kol’s desiccated body before looking at Henri. It would be so easy to get rid of him and then just dump Kol’s body. She wonders if Kol even thought of that.

She reaches down and pulls the dagger out.

“This magic that you’ve been practicing,” Henri says. It’s the first time she’s heard him speak and she can’t place where the faint accent in his voice comes from. “It’s extremely dangerous.”

“And what would you know about it?” Bonnie asks skeptically with narrowed eyes.

“More than you realize. I used to be a warlock.”

Okay, so she hadn’t seen that one coming.

“You used to be a warlock?”

He nods once. “In Haiti, in the seventeenth century. Before Kol turned me.”

“Wait, you were a warlock and Kol turned you? I thought he respected witches and warlock,” she says with a frown.

“He does,” Henri replied. “I _wanted_ to be turned.”

“Why would a warlock want to be turned into a vampire? Why would you want to be cut off from your magic like that?” She thinks of her mother and how she was after being turned into a vampire. Abby had been miserable over losing her connection to magic and nature.

“Why do you want to remain cut off from the spirits?” he counters.

She looks at him and doesn’t say anything. She sure as hell isn’t going to launch into an explanation over how the spirits are torturing her dead grandmother with a complete stranger, former warlock or no. “I’m not getting into this with _you._ I don’t even know you.”

“It’s a slippery slope, Miss. Bennett,” he says warningly. “And it won’t end well for you.”

She remembers saying something similar to Jeremy once; how it never ended well for people like her.

“I know it won’t,” she tells him. “I’ve never really expected it to.”

They stand there in silence as Kol’s fingers begin to twitch and start returning to a more normal color.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was an interesting chapter to write. Obviously, from here on out we’re deviating from the show’s canon. 
> 
> There were some Beremy moments here, but don’t worry, this is first and foremost a Kennett fic.
> 
> What’d you guys think of my OC, Henri? He may not seem like much now, but I promise he will get more fleshed out and become significant later.
> 
> Also, one more thing I’d like to point out: When I was talking about the different religions and the end of the world, most of those religions don’t see the raising of the dead as a bad thing. The only one that did was the Viking mythology. I just find it interesting that so many religions believe that the dead being raised is a part of the end of the world and it fits in well with that the show says about Silas so far.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

Bonnie finds herself wondering how painful it is for the Originals to be undaggered. She thinks it must be very much so because it's obvious that Kol is in pain as he tries to orientate himself and she's ninety-five percent sure he's the type to show no pain.

She glances sideways at Henry, wondering if he'll say anything about her Expression. She wonders if Kol would even care.

Power is power after all.

"No one suspects you yet?" Kol asks her, straightening up and smoothing his clothing. He looks less than thrilled by the hole the dagger has put in his jacket and shirt.

"No. Wasn't that the whole point?" Bonnie replies with a raised eyebrow.

"I don't give a damn either way," Kol replies. "But you must have realized it by now; you can't keep up this charade forever and when the time comes will you really be able to side against your so-called friends?"

She looks at him, almost in disbelief. "Seriously? You're going to ask me this  _now_?"

"You didn't answer my question."

She lifts up her chin defiantly at him. "I've made it this far, haven't I?"

He looks down at her with a smirk on his face and she's not sure how to interpret it.

* * *

Her body is filled with tension and her knuckles are nearly bone white from how tightly she is gripping the steering wheel as she drives back to the Gilbert residence.

Bonnie's mind is spinning from the rapid thoughts flinging through it and she knows that she has put herself in a fine mess and she can only keep up the crazy ruse so long.

She's also not foolish enough to think that Kol wouldn't make another attempt on Elena or Jeremy's life.

Either way, she's screwed.

When she finally reaches the Gilbert's, she turns the car off and sits there for a moment. She feels so exhausted…she always feels exhausted. She's not sure she wants to face Elena or Jeremy right now and wonders if they'd come get her if she tried sleeping in the car.

With a hefty sigh, she pulls the keys out of the ignition and slowly slides out of the car and makes her way up to the front porch.

"Your dad keeps calling," Elena says, opening up the front door before Bonnie could even reach it. "He knows you're here and he wants you to come home, but I don't think he's going to come here and try to make you or anything…did something happen, by the way? Jeremy said you were having a fight and that Abby came back and everything."

"It's a long story that I don't really want to talk about," Bonnie replies, stepping inside the house.

"So, where'd you put him?" She hears Damon call from the kitchen. Figures he'd be here the second his compulsion broke.

"The whole point of me being the one to get rid of his body was so that it couldn't be compelled out of anybody else," Bonnie replies rolling her eyes. She turns to Elena, "Look, I'm tired so I'm just going to head up to your room and crash there, okay?"

"Of course," Elena replies with a nod. "You can borrow clothes and stuff too."

"Thanks," Bonnie mutters as she trudges up the stairs. She wonders if Elena even noticed that she wouldn't meet her eyes.

She changes into a pair of sweatpants that are way too long on her and a tank top and curls underneath the covers on the side of the bed that she's always slept on since she started having sleepovers with Elena before for as long as she can remember.

As she closes her eyes, Kol's words ring through her head again.

" _You can't keep up this charade forever."_

* * *

When Bonnie wakes up, she's alone in Elena's room. She thought that maybe her friend would have come up later, but Bonnie guesses that she must have spent the night with Damon.

She feels disgust crawling through her as she thinks about the sire bond.

 _Well, the only way to solve that is to get her the cure,_ says a little voice in her head.

She sighs and runs a hand through her messy hair before climbing out of Elena's bed.

After pulling her hair back into a messy bun and borrowing more of Elena's clothes she heads down the stairs and into the kitchen.

"Morning," Jeremy says with a small smile, handing her a cup of hot coffee.

"Thanks," she replies with a weak smile, accepting it and perching on a stool at the island counter.

Jeremy watches her for a moment and she wonders if he realizes that something's not quite right wither her.

"You look like you've got a lot on your mind," he says, taking a seat next to her.

"I keep thinking about this cure; What Kol said about it," she admits. She knows she's slipping into dangerous territory by talking to Jeremy about this, but who else could she talk to? Everyone else would just immediately dismiss her.

"You don't think what he's saying is true, do you?"

"I don't know," Bonnie replies. And she finds that that's an honest answer. She doesn't really know and the only way to know for sure would be if they went and got the cure, which led to the issue of, "What if it is? What if we get this cure and we do end up unleashing hell on earth?"

Jeremy is silent and Bonnie thinks that she's made a mistake of opening her mouth.

"Do you think we should stop looking for the cure, then?" he asks her.

She gnaws nervously on her bottom lip. "The cure would solve a lot of problems," Bonnie admitted. "But look at how many problems it's already caused. I'm stuck using a form of magic that I can't control, you're now a vampire hunter and you can't control that either and Stefan, Damon, and Klaus keep turning people for you to kill. Hell, Elena just pitted you against Kol last night and look at what almost happened."

It occurs to her that this is the first time she's ever admitted aloud that she doesn't have control over the Expression and she doesn't like it.

Jeremy opens his mouth to say something, but is cut off by the ringing of the phone.

"I guess I should get that," he says, reluctantly getting up.

As he answers the phone, she finds herself staring into the darkness of her coffee, getting lost in her thoughts.

She jumps a little when the phone is suddenly appears next to her face.

"It's your dad," Jeremy says. "I could tell him where to go if you want."

She smiles a little bit at that, but takes the phone from him with a soft thanks. She doesn't really want to deal with her father right now, but she knows she's going to have to face the music sooner or later.

" _You can't keep up the charade forever."_

* * *

"What happened last night can't keep happening, Bonnie," her father tells her the moment she enters the house.

"I know," she replies.

He looks surprised for a moment, clearly expecting her to put up a fight.

"I meant what I said last night, though," she tells him. "You don't get a say in what I do. You haven't been here. You don't know what has happened to me this past year… _you don't know me."_

As she walks up the stairs, her phone beeps, signaling an in incoming text message. When she looks, she sees it's from Kol. It's an address, an apartment number, and a time.

 _It's probably a stupid idea to go there,_ she thinks.  _Especially alone._ She internally debates for a moment before deciding to go. She's strong enough to take him down if she has to.

* * *

Rudy Hopkins is a practical man and he's never had any illusions about himself.

He knows he's not a good father. Not by the faintest stretch of the imagination.

" _You haven't been here…you don't know me."_

As harsh as the words were, they're the truth. He really didn't know the first think about his daughter.

The truth? He didn't know how to face his daughter after Abby left. He didn't know what to say when she kept asking when mommy would be home or how to explain it to her when she asked if mommy left because of her.

So, he threw himself into his work and left Sheila to pick up the pieces even though he always voiced his dislike of his mother-in-law because she was so open about her witchcraft.

Then, when Sheila passed away, he shipped Bonnie off to some relatives to let them deal with it.

He knows he has nothing but poor excuses for his neglectful parenting.

Somehow, he's going to find a way to help his daughter, though, even if it's the last thing he does.

* * *

She hears her dad leave about half an hour before it's time for her to meet with Kol.

 _Now or never, Bennett,_ she thinks to herself.

The moment she steps out of the house, she is pinned to the side of it by a hand at her throat.

"Where is he?!" Klaus snarls, her faced vamped out and far too close to Bonnie's for comfort.

The witch figures that she must be speaking of Kol.

"Where is he?!" The blonde snarls again when he doesn't receive a response, pulling Bonnie away from the house and slamming her back into it for good measure. She thinks she actually sees stars for a moment.

Bonnie narrows her eyes and lets the magic flow through her. Klaus's grip falters and then he's kneeling in front of Bonnie, clutching his head and growling in pain.

"Let's get one thing straight," Bonnie grits out. "You don't stand a chance against me; none of your family does anymore."

She walks past Klaus, still not letting up on her magic. When she reaches the bottom of the steps, she turns to look back at him, "You might want to remember that I'm the  _only_ one who knows where he is. If you hurt or kill me or anyone I care about, you'll  _never_ see him again."

* * *

As she stands in front of the door, she licks her lips and squares her shoulders before raising a small fist to knock.

Kol opens the door before she makes contact with the wood.

She quickly pulls her hand back in surprise before it hits his chest and takes a step back. She feels herself scowling as his ever-present smirk appears.

"Your family is going to be a problem," she says brusquely, brushing past him to enter the apartment.

"They're already a problem," he replies in a dull voice, closing the door and turning to face her.

She looks around his apartment and is a little surprised at how bare it is. It's a simple studio apartment with only a bed, a desk, a table, and a small kitchenette. After seeing the splendor of the Mikaelson mansion, she almost finds it hard to believe that Kol would be staying her. She guesses that it's smart on his part, though. Who would ever think to look for him here?

"Klaus just attacked me because he thinks you're daggered and he thinks I'm the only one who knows where you are."

She sees something like surprise flicker in his brown eyes for the briefest of moments and she wonders if maybe he didn't expect Klaus to actually care about what's happened to him.

"Well, that is the story you chose to come up with."

"Got any plans about what to do with your siblings?"

"Do you have any plans about what you're going to do with your friends?" He counters.

"What? are you actually trying to tell me you care about your family like I care about my friends?" Bonnie asks dryly. Alright, so maybe that was a bit harsh and presumptuous on her part. And maybe the Mikaelson's didn't want each other permanently dead, but she found it hard to believe that they really gave that much of a damn about each other.

"Do you really find that so hard to believe, Bonnie?"

"You tried to kill Rebekah the other night," Bonnie replies flatly.

He doesn't respond, simply giving her a look and she realizes that he never would have done it. Despite being the odd one out and the fact that Klaus has carried him in a box for a century and Rebekah trying to dagger him, he still cares…or at the very least doesn't want to see them dead.

She wonders if that means there's hope for the tattered remains of all her relationships.

She finds herself looking at him as if she's never really seen him before. Despite being one of the most volatile vampires she's ever met, she finds herself starting to see some seemingly human layers and she finds herself wanting to peel away at them just to find out who Kol Mikaelson really is.

That's probably going to end up being a problem too.

She clears her throat awkwardly and asks, "What did you ask me here for?"

"Because your  _friends,"_ he says, putting a sarcastic emphasis on the word, "Are still going to be a problem that we'll need to solve."

"Are they?" Bonnie asks. "They can't do anything without me and now that they think you're daggered why bother?" She folds her arms in front of her chest adamantly.

"You can't even tell them that you'll refuse to help them get the cure," he scoffs at her.

"I will." She pauses. "I just need to figure out  _how."_

He actually has the balls to laugh in her face. "Please, you don't know how to defy them. The Salvatores killed your mother for that pathetic doppelganger and yet you  _still_ work for them. Do you really not value yourself at all?"

Okay. Well that hurt. A lot more than she'd ever like to admit.

"Go to hell," she spits venomously and goes to leave. Before she can, however, she finds her back slammed against the door with Kol's hand around her throat.

 _Hell with this,_ Bonnie thinks. She didn't allow it when Klaus did it and she be damned if she'd allow it again.

She lets the magic flow through her body, breaking the bones in his hand and, instead of focusing on the blood vessels in his brain, she decides to pop every single one in his body.

He immediately drops to the ground, groaning in pain.

He reaches out towards her as she turns on her heels and leaves, slamming the door behind her.

 


	5. Chapter 5

"Did you know that the little witch has Expression?" Kol asks Henri the next day.

"Of course."

"Yeah, you would know to spot it. Firsthand experience and all."

Henri looks at him, completely unamused by Kol's less than subtle reminders of his less than stellar past.

"I'm assuming she demonstrated her powers for you…or on you," Henri says dryly.

"I had my suspicions, so I pushed her into doing  _something._  I right, of course," he says with a shrug. "There is one thing I keep thinking about, though," Kol continues. "How long has she been practicing it? It's had to have been for months now and she's been using it quite a bit, but she hasn't completely lost control and gotten herself killed. At least not yet, anyway. Maybe it's because the triangle hasn't been completed? Or is it something else?"

"It doesn't kill until the triangle is completed and the witch attempts one of the worst violations of nature when the spirits have already disconnected them," Henri explains.

"One of the worst violations…like bringing back the dead. Which is why he wants Silas raised, obviously. She would die before she could even raise one person." Kol pauses, running a thumb across his lower lip. "Still, there's something more to this professor, though. Perhaps I should pay him another visit today…"

"You know I'll try to stop you if you attempt to kill the girl as anything but a last resort," Henri tells him.

"You haven't been a witch in over four hundred years and yet you still feel some sort of misplaced comradery for them," Kol says derisively. "Yes. You'll  _try_ to stop any nefarious plans I have with _,_ " he dismissively waves a hand. "Don't worry. She can more than take care of herself. Besides, I'm sure she can serve some sort of purpose yet."

* * *

She doesn't know what she's thinking when she finds herself outside of Elena's house. It's not like she's expecting to sit down and have a heart to heart about everything that's wrong in her life with the doe-eyes brunette. Yet, here she is outside the Gilbert residence.

With a sigh, Bonnie pulls her keys out of the ignition and exits the car. Elena opens the door up shortly after she rings the bell.

"Hey," Elena says, looking a little surprised to see the witch standing there.

"Hi," Bonnie replied. "I—uhm, I just—"  _Pull it together, Bennett,_ she tells herself. "Sorry, I've just been a bit weird lately and we haven't hung out in a while and I'm not doing anything so…"

Elena smiles and lets Bonnie in.

"Do you want anything? Coffee? Tea?"

Awkward. All of this feels so awkward. Elena probably doesn't even realize it, but Bonnie feels reduced to nothing more than a guest instead of someone who has practically lived in this house for eighteen years.

"Coffee sounds good," Bonnie says, perching on a chair at the kitchen table. "I could use some caffeine."

"Well, the good news is that I think Jeremy will soon be done completing his mark," Elena says, handing Bonnie a mug before sitting down with her own.

"What? How?"

"Well, since the Kol plan didn't pan out, we're back to square one; getting him vampires to kill," Elena replies. "This time we're doing more contained. Last time, Jeremy and Matt got attacked by a horde of vampires because Klaus got impatient."

"You mean to tell me that you guys are turning people just so Jeremy can kill them?" She thinks her eyes might bug out of her head. It certainly doesn't escape her notice that that bit of information hadn't been revealed to her.

_Where'd you think the vampire had been coming from?_ Asks a voice in her head.

She supposes it should have occurred to her sooner that they would do something like this. It doesn't make her any less disturbed, though.

"Well, yeah," Elena said. "I don't like it either, which is why I wanted to kill Kol, but, like I said, since that didn't work out—"

"This has to stop," Bonnie says, interrupting Elena.

The brunette vampire looks at her open-mouthed for a moment before asking, "What?"

"We can't keep doing this."

"Bonnie…"

"No, Elena. Just think about it for a minute! You're letting innocent people get turned into vampires for Jeremy to kill! How is that right?"

Silence.

"Whatever happened to 'this can't be us'?" Bonnie asks much quieter.  _Or does that only apply because I hurt one of the Salvatores?_ She almost adds, but doesn't.

"I know things are bad right now," Elena says, taking Bonnie's hands in hers. She tries hard not to flinch. She's not sure if it's because of the feeling she always gets when she touches vampires or because she's talking to Elena. "But it'll all be okay. Everything can go back to normal once we get the cure."

_Normal? Normal for who?_

"Bonnie—"

"I said NO!" Bonnie shouts and the windows around her suddenly shatter. Elena gapes at her.

They stand in silence and Bonnie feels like there's an atomic bomb about to be dropped on them. And in a way, she supposes there is.

"I'm sorry," Bonnie says, much calmer this time. "But I can't do this anymore. This cure…it's just not worth it anymore."

"But, Bonnie, we can't do it without you," Elena says. The doe-eyed brunette takes a tentative step towards her, obviously a little nervous around the witch after seeing that involuntary display of magic. "I didn't ask for this! I don't want to be a vampire! It's ruined everything!"

_Caroline didn't ask to be a vampire either. Abby doesn't want to be a vampire any more than you do. They all found a way to deal, so why can't you?_ Bonnie almost asks, but she bites her tongue.

"I know. And I'm sorry. I know you're not used to hearing the word 'no'…especially from me, but this time I have to. There's just…there's just too much  _everything._  Shane massacred twelve people for this, arranged for Klaus to kill those twelve hybrids, Kol went berserk over this and nearly killed us, and Jeremy is killing innocent people. I just can't do all this anymore."

"Bonnie—"

"I said no." This time Bonnie does her best to make herself consciously aware of her magic so it doesn't literally blow up again.

She quickly leaves, doing her best to ignore the devastated look on Elena's face.

* * *

So showing up at the door of a thousand plus year old vampire who tried to choke her out yesterday probably isn't one of her smarter ideas, but, sad as it is, she doesn't know who else to go to. Everyone else is sure to take Elena's side and she can only do so much on her own.

When she raises her fist to tentatively knock, he opens the door again just like he did last time.

"I must say I wasn't expecting you back so soon." He says it all so pleasantly with a charming smile and everything.

"I told Elena I won't help her get the cure," Bonnie says without preamble.

He grins even more. "Ah, well, I'm sure our perfect little doppelgänger didn't take that too well, did she?"

"Don't," Bonnie says, pushing past him to enter the apartment.

"Oh, please. Why do you even still care? I'm sure you have quite a laundry list of things that have happened to you because of her."

"I also have a laundry list of things that have happened to me because of  _you_ and  _your_ family."

"Do you remember Finn? The elder brother of mine your friends killed? They didn't think twice about it. They simply killed him because they thought they could kill Nik that way."

She didn't even realize she'd been angrily pacing until she finds herself coming to a screeching halt at his words.

She remembers Finn, who admittedly wasn't a horrible person. It had been a bit heartbreaking to see how suicidal he was, but she can't deny that it was unsurprising.

When you've spent nine hundred years in a coffin because of family, do you really have anything left?

"Finn wanted to die. He wanted to stop the rest of you," Bonnie replies, not sure what he's trying to get at.

"He had wanted to live," Kol replies.

"What?"

"Finn. He had found a reason to live because of an old love he had thought had been dead. He was sappy and sentimental like that." He licks his lips and steps closer to Bonnie. "He finally decided that he wanted to live and then  _your_ friends killed him without a second thought."

She didn't know that. She's sure her friends didn't either. But does that mean anything?

There's a lot of things her friend don't know, but there's also lot of things they do know and it doesn't stop them in their path of destruction.

But…Is she any better for being in cahoots with Kol when he's made attempts on Elena and Jeremy's life?

"Why do you care so much about it? He was trying to kill you."

"He was still my older brother." He steps even closer to her. "He was still the older brother who had cared for me, who had been more of a parent to me than my own were."

Her lips part slightly in shock. This whole moment feels surreal to her.

He's revealing things to her, things about his human past. Okay, so it was one miniscule thing, but she's sure he doesn't go around handing tidbits like that to everyone.

She's never really thought about what he might have been like as a human. But why would she? It's not like she's ever dwelt on what Stefan or Damon were like when they were human. She's never had any reason to.

He's so close that she can feel his breath on her face and for a wild moment she thinks he's actually going to kiss. For a moment she thinks that she would actually let him.

Then she suddenly remembers that he literally tried to choke her out yesterday and she concludes that she probably really has lost her mind just like everyone else around her has.

Then it occurs to her exactly what he's doing. The same thing he attempted to do last nice.

He's putting on a façade of caring about his family, trying to humanize himself to make her sympathize with him.

He's trying to use her compassion in his own favor just like everyone else does.

She almost wants to tell him that playing the family issues card is so old. Literally none of her friends have a picture perfect family, so why would she care if some psychopathic Original wants to get sentimental over what once was?

_Maybe because you want to go back to how things used to be,_ a little voice says in her head.

"You can stop now," she says, stepping away from him. "You don't have to prove to me that my friends have poor judgment or that they're not always the good guys. I wouldn't be here if I didn't already know that myself."

He hums and his lips twist slightly back into a smirk, but he doesn't say anything.

"I'm sure Elena will take no time in telling them what I just told her and I'm sure they'll all try to convince me otherwise. Klaus is going to be the major problem, though. Elena has some freaky alliance going on with him to get the cure, which means he's going to try to force me to help in ways that are a lot more effective than my friends could. So, we need to do something about him. Like I've been telling you we need to," she says, stepping away from him.

"Well, daggers don't work on him. I suppose you could desiccate him like you did before," he muses. "Having him stuck in a box for at least a century would be fair turnabout."

"You know, playing the screwed up family sympathy card doesn't work so well when you start talking about storing one of your siblings away for a hundred years," she tells him dryly.

"Anyway," she continues, ignoring his attempt to look wide-eyed and innocent. "Desiccating him would mean stopping a beating heart. And I won't do that. Not again."

"What a shame. What does our great mastermind have planned, then?" He asks. "Your last one nearly made Nik kill, but by all means…"

She glares at him and his half-tempted to snap a few bones at his condescending tone, but decides that it simply isn't worth the effort. Instead, she directs her attention on ways to get Klaus out of the picture.

"I could trap him somewhere for an indefinite amount of time," she says.

"Can you? All magic has limits," he responds.

"I took you down yesterday. I'm sure I can contain your brother with no problem," she replies.

"How did you do that, by the way? It certainly didn't feel like normal magic," he says.

_He knows about the Expression,_  she realizes. She wonders if he figured it out on his own or if Henri actually told him.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Bonnie replies with a shrug.

"Of course you don't." He smiles and invades her space once again. "Well, it looks like things are finally going to get interesting, little witch."

Bonnie's not naïve enough to think that once everything is said and done Kol himself won't pose some sort of problem.

She'll figure out how to deal with him as it came along.

_Easier said than done._


	6. Chapter 6

There's thirty-six unanswered text messages, thirty missed calls, and twenty-three voicemail messages on her phone.

Most of them were from Damon and she doesn't need to read or listen to them to know what they say. However, there are some from Caroline and Jeremy as well and with those she's not so sure she wants to know what they say.

She's imagining everything from confusion to understanding to anger and she's not sure what she wants from either of them.

Suddenly, her doorbell rings and Bonnie contemplates whether she wants to answer it or not.

Then, the doorbell is pressed repeatedly and Caroline starts yelling. "Bonnie Bennett, I know you're home! You've got forty-five seconds to open this door before I smash it to pieces and hunt you down!"

She would do it too.

"You know I'll do it!"

"Good morning to you too, Caroline," Bonnie says when she opens the door.

The blonde brushes past her and heads straight to the kitchen.

"Elena told me what happened yesterday…or some version of it, anyway, and I wanted to talk to you about," Caroline says as she pulls out the pint of cookie dough flavored Ben&Jerry's Bonnie had stashed in the fridge. "So, spill," she continues, pulling out two spoons and handing Bonnie one of them.

"I told her I didn't want anything to do with the cure anymore."

"I know that," the blonde says, rolling her eyes. "Really, Bon, you need to give me more than that."

"Do you know how they've been getting vampires for Jeremy to kill?" Bonnie asks Caroline. She looks down at the spoon in her hands, but makes no move for the ice cream Caroline was currently shoveling in.

"I know that Stefan was turning a bunch of criminals into vampires for Jeremy to kill. Really bad criminals, too, like serial killers and stuff, which I'm not saying is okay per se, but better than some innocent person, right?"

"That's the thing, though," Bonnie said. She began nervously tapping the spoon against one of her knuckles. "It is innocent people now."

"What?"

"Klaus and Damon have been turning random people into vampires to kill. Well, Klaus is turning them at least, but I doubt Damon is putting up a huge fight about it, though."

"Oh my God," Caroline said. It's almost comical how Caroline is sitting there, mouth agape and spoonful of ice cream slowly dripping back into the carton, but the entire situation is too fucked up for Bonnie to so much as quirk her lips upwards at the blonde's reaction.

"That's what sent me over the edge to tell Elena that I didn't want to help with cure anymore, but it's more than just that, Caroline," Bonnie continues.  
"It's just that…" she trails off and takes a deep breath. "Everything in me is telling me to not get the cure. I mean, everything that we have to go through for it? Shane's mass-murders, Jeremy on a vampire-killing spree, the possibility of that Silas creep waking up? I mean…don't you think that that's all a sign that we shouldn't be doing this?"

Caroline puts the spoon back in the carton and chews on her lip a little bit. "Okay, but what do we do about Elena? I mean, we can't just leave her sired to Damon!"

Bonnie sighs and puts the spoon down on her kitchen table. "I know. And that's what makes this whole situation so sticky. But maybe there's another way to break the sirebond? Something we haven't thought of or even considered? I don't know. I know Stefan and Damon and Elena all probably think I'm crazy, but…"

"Okay, let's forget about them for now. Let's focus on you. Are you okay?" Caroline asks. "Is there something else going on or…?"

"Everything's just such a mess. I really do wish this was all over," Bonnie replies. "But this cure…I just…I can't, Caroline."

"I'll be honest," Caroline says, setting the ice cream down on the counter. "I do think this cure is Elena's best chance, but you shouldn't have to do anything you don't want to. And, besides, you're always the one saving us, so if you really feel that strongly about it, I'll trust you on this."

Bonnie feels a knotting ball of emotion in her chest. She almost wants to tell Caroline everything else that's been going on like her shaky alliance with Kol. She keeps her mouth quiet, though.

Her phone lets out a chime, signaling a text message. She pulls it out to look to see who it's from. It's from Kol.

"Who's that from?" Caroline asks, picking the ice cream back up.

"Damon," Bonnie lies, sliding the phone back into her pocket, planning to read the text message later. It's not like she could tell Caroline that it's from Kol. "He's been blowing up my phone all day and all of last night. But I haven't actually answered…or listened to my voicemail…or looked at my text messages."

Caroline snorts. "Wise choice. This goes without saying, but Damon is pissed about what happened yesterday…not that you can't handle him 'cause you totally could, but he's such a pain in the ass, why waste your time unless you have to?"

Bonnie smiles at Caroline and they fall into a silence that's not exactly tense, but not exactly comfortable either.

"I know I won't gain weight or anything, but it'd make me feel like less of a pig if you actually ate some of this too," Caroline said around a mouthful of ice cream.

Bonnie let out a small laugh and reached to grab the small carton from the blonde vampire to get some ice cream for herself.

* * *

When Rudy enters the police station, he notices that Liz on her deputy seem a bit off today as if they were running on auto-pilot. He supposes he shouldn't find that too surprising, though, given everything that has been happening in Mystic Falls in just little more than a year.

Rudy isn't sure just what he's expecting when he comes face to face with Shane in that little interrogation room.

He knows the man is a manipulator and that he's good at it. He also knows that whatever the man has done to his daughter is far from easily fixable.

Still, he wants answers. And he wants them  _now._

"Mr. Hopkins. I would say it's a surprise to see you, but…" Shane says pleasantly.

"Stop with the bullshit," Rudy says, cutting to the chase. "What did you do to my daughter?"

"She came to me for help, so I taught her an alternative form of magic—"

"I said, stop with the bullshit. Whatever you taught her…it's going to destroy her, isn't it?"

"That's why she needs me," Shane says. "I'm the only one that can help keep her calm and under control."

The entire time, the professor keeps an eerily calm look and all Rudy wants to do is smash his head repeatedly into a table for actually having the gall to act like he's helping Bonnie when all he has done is.

He's starting to feel like he made a big mistake in coming here in the first place. He would have been better off going to Abby again and coming up with a better plan to help Bonnie.

When he focuses back on Shane, the professor's eyes are boring into him and he's still as calm as ever.

"You're going to get me out of here, Rudy, because your daughter needs me."

* * *

She doesn't dare to look at Kol's text message until Caroline is gone. When she looks at it all there is is a time and a  _Meet at my place first_.

Right as she's getting ready to leave to meet Kol and take care of Klaus for the time being, she hears a knock on the door.

She expects it to be Stefan or Damon to give her a lecture about what happened at Elena's house and then attempt to persuade her to follow their lead again.

Instead, it turns out to be Shane of all people.

"What are you doing here? How did you get out of jail?" Bonnie asks, dumbfounded. She grips the front door so hard that her knuckles turn white and she wants nothing more than to slam it in his face.

"That's not important," he says dismissively with his usual pleasant smile on his face. "Jeremy's has just a few vampires away from completing his mark, which means you need to be ready for what comes next."

Bonnie shakes her head. "No. I'm not doing anything. There's no way this cure is worth it and Silas—"

"It'll all be okay, Bonnie," he reassures her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You are in complete control, remember?" Her mind suddenly goes blank. "Now, here's what you'll do."

Bonnie still manages to show up at Kol's on time even with Shane causing a small detour.

"Ready for this?" she asks when he opens the door.

"Of course," he says with a grin.

The drive to his brother's house is silent and, while he's never been one for quiet, it does not particularly bother him.

When he looks at Bonnie, something seems different about her, but he can't quite put his finger on  _what_ this time. Watching all the twists and turns she's taken these past few days have been interesting and he can't deny that he's looking forward to seeing just how far she'll go.

When they reach the overly large mansion, Kol enters without bothering to knock. They get as far as the living room until they see any sign of Klaus.

"Kol. To what do I owe this displeasure?" Klaus asks. When he takes notice of Bonnie, he look genuinely surprised.

"What the hell is this?" Klaus asks.

"Well, I told you that I wasn't going to let any of you raise Silas," Kol says cheerfully. "And I meant it."

Klaus makes a move towards Kol, but finds himself trapped behind an invisible barrier. It takes him no time to figure out just what Bonnie did.

"When I get ahold of you, of  _both_ of you," he growls out. "I will rip  _you,_ " he points at Bonnie, "Apart limb from limb. And  _you,_ " he glares at Kol, "I will store you in a box longer than I did Finn. You'll be lucky if you ever see the light of day again."

Obviously not fazed by his brother's threats at all, Kol simply smirks and says, "See you later, Nik." He moves to leave, but finds an invisible barrier blocking his way.

"Bonnie…"

Her face is perfectly emotionless. Even her eyes were blank. "I had to get you out of the way."

He can feel the fury welling up in him, burning his insides like alcohol. Did she actually manage to fool him all along?

"You…"

She walks away, ignoring any subsequent threats from Kol and doesn't look back once.


	7. Chapter 7

He’s already furious about being trapped in the living room in the first place, however, being tapped with an equally irate Klaus was just the icing on this is shitty cake.

He already gave Henri a call to inform him of what happened and, while the other vampire agreed to go after Bonnie, he doubts it will actually do any good.

“Well, this is certainly a fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Kol,” Klaus spat, pacing back and forth throughout the room. They hybrid spent that past day firing off one disparaging comment after another and more than once a physical altercation had broken out between them.

Instead of telling Klaus to shut up for the thousandth time, Kol just looks at him with a bored expression from his position on the overly expensive couch.

“No, really,” Klaus continues, a wry smile spreading across his face. “Did you actually think that the little witch would help you? If it were me, I would have seen the betrayal coming from miles away.”

Kol snorts and tilts his head back towards the ceiling before looking at Klaus again. “That’s real hilarious, Nik, considering you didn’t have the damndest idea that all this was happening right under your nose and now you’re trapped here with me too.”

The sarcastic smirk immediately drops from Klaus’s face and he lunges for Kol.

* * *

 

Caroline’s not so sure that coming here is the best idea, but suddenly receiving a call from Elena telling her that she and Bonnie had patched things up and were now setting off to go retrieve the cure just didn’t sit right with her. 

What would have made Bonnie do a total one-eighty after the conversation they’d had yesterday? Surely not even Elena could have convinced Bonnie otherwise; not with how absolutely adamant the witch had been.

So, she finds herself at Klaus’s of all people, thinking that maybe he’d have some answers for her. Was it a ridiculous idea? Oh, definitely. However, he’s the only person she can talk to face-to-face that had seen Bonnie before she left. 

Tyler had insisted on coming with her, partly for support and partly because he wants to face his mother’s killer. She doesn’t think that’s such a good thing for his healing process, but she knows she can’t really stop him. Tyler would face Klaus head-on whether it was with her or alone.

To say that what’s about to happen is going to be uncomfortable would be a huge understatement.

“Well, aren’t you looking all cozy locked away here,” Tyler says sarcastically as he strolls into the Mikaelson living room. His eyes flicker from Klaus to the wreckage of broken glass and furniture throughout the room to where an unamused Kol sits perched on the arm of what he thinks used to be a couch.

When Caroline sees Kol, her confusion increases even more.

“Kol?” This is one of the few times where Caroline has no idea what to say. He’s supposed to be daggered! Bonnie had daggered him and put him somewhere that only she knew! So, how could he possibly be here right now? Did someone find him and pull out the dagger, unknowing of what would happen. 

“Surprised to see me?” The vampire in question asks dryly. “You know, I’d seriously been thinking that your little group was in on the witch playing me, but given your reaction, I’d say your friend has been keeping some secrets from you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?!”

Klaus, clearly not in the mood for any of this, buts in, “What this idiot is trying to say is that he was under the impression that he and the witch-bitch had formed a warped little team to prevent Silas from being raised, but obviously he was wrong. And now here we are.”

Caroline stands there just blinking with her mouth hanging open slightly.

She’s known something hasn’t been quite right with Bonnie for a while, but she also knows that her best friend has been under a lot of stress, stress that had been put upon her by everyone else. She never would have expected this, though.

“None of this makes any sense!” Caroline says, shaking her head. “Why would Bonnie ever agree to work with _you_? That’s not like her at all! And just yesterday, Bonnie was hellbent on having absolutely nothing to do with the cure anymore and now she just ups and leaves for it? Not to mention, that creepy professor was conveniently let out of jail yesterday before a full investigation was even con—”

She stops in the middle of her tirade because something suddenly clicks in her mind. “Oh crap! That creep did some sort of mindfuck on her!” Caroline screeches.

“Fantastic,” Klaus says sarcastically, nonplussed. “You’ve got it all figured out. And that helps how? We’re still trapped here.”

Kol ignores his brother and instead focuses on Caroline. He supposes it makes sense. The professor was able to make himself resistant to compulsion without the use of vervain. It really wouldn’t be that far-fetched to think he had managed to develop his own for of compulsion or hypnosis that would work on a witch.

He should have gone and killed the professor a second time. And if that didn’t work, he should have just one it again and again and again. He decides not to dwell on it too much, though and pulls out his cell phone to give Henri a call about this new revelation.

Caroline stands there for a moment, still angry and stunned by the whole thing. When she sees Kol dial a number on his cell phone, Caroline knows that the only thing she can do right now is give Elena a call and pray that the brunette would actually listen.

She moves into the other room for the illusion of privacy (but who’s she kidding? Everyone in the house currently has super-hearing) and calls Elena.

“Hey, Caroline! I was just about to call you in like five minutes,” Elena says cheerfully when she picks up the phone. “Our plane just landed and we’re on our way to get a boat to—”

“Elena, listen to me,” Caroline interrupts. “We’re pretty sure that Shane has hypnotized Bonnie into helping you guys get the cure because he wants to raise Silas.”

She can hear Tyler and Klaus arguing in the other room. While she hopes that Tyler wouldn’t do anything foolhardy, she knows that with everyone that has recently happened to him, he’s standing on a ledge and there’s only so much any one person can take. The cruel things Klaus is saying to Tyler certainly doesn’t help matters.

She feels the frustration that comes with having too many problems to deal with welling up in the pit of her belly.

“We?” Elena asks, drawing Caroline’s attention back. “Who’s ‘we’?”

“Me and Kol. And, yeah, I realize how that sounds and I know he’s supposed to be daggered, but that’s not even half of the insanity right now. You guys need to take Bonnie and come home _now.”_

There’s a pause and Caroline could perfectly envision Elena pulling the phone away from her ear, blinking at it dumbly in shock.

“Caroline…I’m not exactly sure what to say. I mean, we’re this close to the cure! How can we just come home now? And speaking of Kol, how is he _not_ daggered?”

“Are you even listening to me?” Caroline snaps. Elena couldn’t really be this blinded by the cure, could she? “Don’t you find it at least a little strange how one day Bonnie blows up at you over the cure and now she’s suddenly all gung-ho about it?”

“I think we’ve all just been under a lot of stress lately and Bonnie just needed some time to herself. Besides, she seems perfectly fine to me right now, Care,” Elena says.

“She’s not fine! What the hell is the matter with you?”

“Look,” Elena’s voice hushes as if she’s trying not to be overheard. “We don’t trust Shane either, so I promise we’ll keep an eye on him and Bonnie. Everything will be okay. I’ll see you when we get home.”

The phone connection goes static and Caroline’s mouth hangs open in disbelief.

She walks back into the living room, half angry and half stunned.

“Elena doesn’t believe me.”

“Shocker,” Kol deadpans.

“Let’s go, Tyler.” The last thing she needs is more of Kol’s snarky comments. Also, judging by the way Tyler and Klaus are glaring at each other, it’s best to get Tyler out of there.

“Seriously, _that_ is what you’ve been wasting your time on?” She hears Kol ask Klaus. She feels herself bristling at that comment, but does her best to ignore it because she has bigger issues to deal with.

Still, though, if Bonnie managed to keep something as massive as an alliance with Kol secret, she couldn’t help but wonder what else Bonnie might have kept hidden.

* * *

 

She doesn’t come into full awareness of herself until she’s alone with Shane and Jeremy.

It was like all the other times he’s hypnotized her; she’s doing things before she even realizes just _what_ is happening. It’s like sleepwalking.

And when she’s finally aware again, she almost wants to scream.

Clearly seeing the horror on her face, “Shane is immediately movies to calm her. “Shhh, Bonnie, it’s okay.”

“Get away from me!” She all but shrieks and stumbles to get away from him, Jeremy reaching out to steady her. “You’re insane!”

“I understand that—”

“Shut up! I don’t want to hear it! I _trusted_ you and…” she can’t even finish the thought. “You’re insane,” she repeats.

The patient, understanding, sympathetic look suddenly melts away from Shane’s face and Bonnie finds herself becoming even more frightened.

“Look,” he tells her flatly, “As much as you dislike it, you _need_ me. Everything I’ve done has been completely necessary, especially teaching you Expression. But, like, all magic, it comes with a price. Without me being able to control you, you’ll eventually lose control and die.”

Horrified, Bonnie doesn’t know what to say. She looks at Jeremy, who’s currently glaring at Shane.

She could see the wheels turning in her ex-boyfriend’s head and knew he had a million things to say to the crazed professor, but didn’t even know where to start.

“So,” Shane said cheerfully, clapping his hands together. “Let’s get going, shall we?”

Bonnie wonders how she didn’t see it before; how frighteningly _two-faced_ this man is.

Bonnie and Jeremy look at each other and she hopes that he’s thinking what she’s thinking. If they comply with Shane for now, he won’t hypnotize them again and when the perfect opportunity presented itself, they’d get far, far away from him no matter what it took.

They follow Shane deeper into the forest.

* * *

“Any word from that little minion of yours?” Klaus asks as if he hasn’t been right here to see for himself.

“He told me that it’s a remote island that almost nobody knows about, Nik. It won’t have service.”

This is the first time Klaus has broken the tense silence since Tyler and Caroline left in a flurry. Kol is really wishing that his older brother would just keep his mouth shut.

“You should have left it alone, Kol.”

He lets out a humorless laugh. “ _I_ should have left it alone? Do you _really_ want to rehash this again?”

“Unlike the rest of you morons, I’ve actually been trying to protect us.”

“Oh, really?” Klaus replies in a droll voice.

“ _I_ went after vengeance when Finn was killed. _I_ tried my damndest to cover up who originated the Salvatores’ bloodline to stop their attempts to murder us—thanks for idiotically running mouth about that one, by the way. _I_ tried to make sure Silas didn’t rise and kill us all.”

Klaus snorts. “Let’s not pretend you did that out of the goodness of your heart. You did it all for your own benefit.”

“And what have the rest of you done?” Kol snarls, getting up in his older brother’s face. “Elijah doesn’t want anything to do with us. Rebekah is so utterly blinded by the delusion that being human is somehow better than being a vampire, and you’re obsessed with making hybrids—all of which have _hated_ you and wanted you dead.”

“Well, then, maybe you should just accept that we’re just a sham of a family and move on.”

* * *

 

 After walking for what felt like miles, they reach a cavern.

“We’re finally here,” Shane says with a large grin. He shrugs off his backpack and begins to pull out rappelling equipment.

“Jeremy will god down first, and then you, Bonnie, and then I’ll follow behind the both of you.”

As she watches Jeremy go down, she continues to wrack her brain for any possibilities to get out of this mess.

When Jeremy calls out that he finally reached that bottom, Shane motions for Bonnie to go, and she carefully rappels her way down. She touches the bottom and stumbles a bit, Jeremy reaching out to steady her.

“Any ideas of how we’ll get out of this one?” Jeremy whispers as quietly as he can so that the echoes wouldn’t carry up to Shane.

Bonnie looks at the cavern around her, searching for any solution. Maybe she could bring the cavern down on Shane without crushing her and Jeremy in the process?

It’s a risky idea, but it’s the only idea she has.

“I think I have an idea,” she whispers to Jeremy. She can hear Shane telling them he was coming down now. “Just keep going along with him; leave it all to me.”

He nods and reaches for her hand to squeeze it reassuringly.

When they hear Shane reach the bottom, they turn around to face him.

 “So,” Shane says excitedly, stepping closer to Bonnie and Jeremy. “Let’s begin.” 

To her horror, Bonnie finds herself turning to Jeremy, who’s taking off his shirt to reveal his hunter’s tattoo.

Apparently Shane wasn’t as distracted as Bonnie has been hoping because he wasn’t taking any chances and had put them under hypnosis again. 

_It’s different this time, though,_ Bonnie realizes. _I’m fully aware of what I’m doing…I just can’t stop it._

She wonders if that’s a sign that she’s getting stronger and more resistant to hypnosis or if it’s just something sick and twisted that Shane devised.

She performs the spell flawlessly, the words flowing of her tongue and the rush that came with Expression flowing through her. And then, Jeremy’s tattoo suddenly disappears.

Other than that, nothing happened.

No bright lights, nothing shaking, nothing opening up. Nothing.

Hoping that  maybe, just maybe something went wrong, she turns to Shane, finding that she’s no longer under hypnosis.

When she sees the face-splitting grin on Shane’s face, though, she feels an even more sinister foreboding stirring in the pit of her belly.

“Oh, it is so _good_ to finally be back at my best,” Shane says.

* * *

 

 She didn’t think she’d be coming to this stupid mansion twice in such a short time span. This time, though, it’s for a different purpose.

It almost feels wrong, even a little bit selfish, but with everything that’s been going on…she’s fucking _terrified._ She’s terrified because of how much Elena has changed (or maybe she hasn’t changed all that much and Caroline is just really seeing her for the first time), she’s terrified because of all the things Bonnie has been keeping from her, and she’s terrified because she know she’s going to lose Tyler to Klaus when, right now, he’s the only one left there to keep her hanging on.

So, here she is, ready to ask Klaus to let her have this one thing. And she really, _really_ hopes that whatever feelings he has are strong enough to do this for her.

“Well, look who it is, Nik,” Kol calls out when Caroline enters the living room.

“I’m here to ask you something,” she says to Klaus, ignoring Kol.

“Oh?” Klaus replies curiously, coming up to meet her. She must be closer to the barrier than she thought because he manages to crowd her space. She’s tempted to take a few steps back, but she stops herself.

“When you get out of here, please…” She pauses to take a deep breath and square her shoulders. “Please, leave Tyler alone. He’s already lost enough and you’ve made your point.”

“See, I don’t think I have,” Klaus says. “Do you think I’m so stupid that I don’t realize he’s now spending every minute of every day plotting to kill me?”

“No, he’s not!” Caroline snaps. Okay, she’s not naïve enough to think that Tyler hasn’t been planning some sort of revenge, but everything is so much more complicated than that. “He’s too busy grieving because you killed the only family he has left.”

 “I’m sure,” Klaus replies flatly, clearly not convinced.

“Look, if whatever you feel for me is real and means _anything_ to you, please just do this for me." 

Klaus tilts his head thoughtfully as if he’s considering something and Caroline allows herself to hope that she’s actually getting through to him for a moment.

“Here’s what I promise: When I get out of her, I will hunt Tyler Lockwood down to the ends of the earth and then I will rip his heart out and send it to you in a gift box.

She gasps and takes a step back. She looks at him for a moment, and then turns to leave, but then turns around and marches back towards him, picking up a heavy, elaborate vase along the way. She throws it at his face as hard as she possibly can and is surprised when it actually makes contact.

She can hear the crunch of his nose breaking and sees the vase shatter, small chunks of ceramic embedding themselves in the hybrid’s skin. 

“You are sad, and pathetic, and cruel. It’s no wonder that not a single person in the world can stand to be around you.” There’s tears streaming down her face, but she manages her words evenly.

“Well, Nik,” Kol Deadpans as he hears Caroline slam the front door to the mansion shut. “You still know surefire ways to make women want you.” Pause. “Although, I think I actually like her a little better now.”

Klaus glares at Kol as he finishes picking shards from the vase out of his skin before punching the younger vampire hard enough to break his jaw.

* * *

 

 “It didn’t work, did it?” Tyler asks when she comes outside.

 “It’s okay,” she says more to herself than she does to him. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll find a way. I mean, we always do.”

“Caroline,” he says, taking her hands and sitting them down on the front steps. “I don’t think we will this time. Klaus is going to keep coming after me, you’ll keep trying to save me, and in the end, you’ll get hurt. The best thing for me to do would be to leave town and not come back.”

“But, you can’t,” she says. The hot tears fall down her face even faster. “With everything that’s going on now…I need you. I need you to be here with me.”

He cups her face in his large hands and looks earnestly into her eyes. “I know I’ve said this to you a million times before, but you are strong enough to make it through. And who knows? Maybe…maybe one day we will actually find a way. That’s the beauty of us being immortal.”

“And if we don’t?” She asks. “If I have to lose you, will you at least try to live as normal a life as possible? And just forget about Mystic Falls and everything that’s happened here?” Even as she says it aloud, she knows that it won’t happen.

Klaus meant every word he said and Tyler would never have a normal life again.

“I’ll go far, far away. I’ll be as normal as I can and I won’t even remember what living here was like,” he whispers to her.

She laughs a little bit through her tears. “You totally suck at lying.”

He kisses her and she clings to the leather of his jacket, wishing that she could make this moment last forever. But eventually, it ends and they pull apart.

“Until we find a way,” she whispers, her words shaking.

He kisses her forehead one last time and then he’s gone.

* * *

“Oh, it’s so _good_ to finally be back at my best.”

Bonnie and Jeremy stare at him, not quite fully comprehending.

“Ah, right, I suppose it’s time that I _properly_ introduce myself,” Shane says. “I’m Silas.”

It’s all so surreal that her mind goes blank and she can barely get any words out.

“But—but I thought Silas was supposed to be entombed—”

“Oh, Bonnie, you of all people should know how stories and mythologies get warped and misconstrued over time. Quetsiyah couldn’t take away my immortality, but she managed to imprison my powers. I managed to teach myself some alternatives, but there’s nothing quite like the real deal.” Flames suddenly spring from each of his fingertips and ghoulish glee encompasses his face.

“But if Silas—you—were never imprisoned here, then why go through all the trouble of bringing us all the way out here?” Jeremy demanded. “Why not have had the spell performed a long time ago?”

“Mmm, don’t think I wasn’t tempted. However, I have a very specific plan. Besides, it’s all been quite fun.” He turns to Bonnie. “Of course, it was so much sweeter, seeing how much you look like Quetsiyah. Now, time to get the cure.” He turns towards a side of the cavern.

“Why? Why would you get the cure?” Bonnie asks. She tries her best to make her voice even, to not show any fear, but her words tremble anyway. “It would turn you human.”

He turns to her and actually laughs. “Oh, sweet little Bonnie B., if only you knew a fraction of the true story.”

He turns back to the cavern wall, waves a hand, and it simply crumbles.

He strides inside, not even glancing back at Bonnie and Jeremy. She wonders how fast they could climb back up that rappelling rope and get away.

She turns back to Jeremy and begins to tell him to start hauling ass, but next thing she knows, she’s pinned to a side of the cavern that’s still intact. 

“Where is it? What did you do with the cure?!” Silas snarls in her face. 

“Nothing,” she yells. “How could I? You’ve had me hypnotized for days!”

“Hey!” Jeremy yells, pulling on Silas’s shoulder. “Let go of her!” He aims a hard punch at Silas’s jaw, but he doesn’t even flinch.

He releases Bonnie and takes a deep breath and straightens out his clothing.

“I suppose you’re right. Ah, well, I can still go forward with the next bit of my plan.”

He reaches out and easily snaps Jeremy’s neck with his bare hands.

Her breath whooshes out of her and she hears a scream and it takes her a minute to realize that it’s her screaming.

“Nononono,” she cries as he advances towards her.

She wills herself to do something, _anything._ She reaches within herself, searching for even the smallest bit of magic, even if it’s Expression.

“Don’t worry,” Shane—no, not Shane, _Silas—_ whispers in her ear. “Killing you isn’t a part of my plan. Not yet at least.”

Then everything goes black.


	8. Chapter 8

The time he's spent in this room with his older brother has probably been one of the least amusing things in Kol's long,  _long_ life.

Even though he'd always been again daggering siblings and he knows it wouldn't work on Klaus, he's sure if he had one of those little instruments on him, he'd have run it through Klaus multiple times by now.

"Kol," he hears Klaus say suddenly. "The barrier is down.

Kol immediately sits up from his lazy position on the couch. His mouth twists into a frown and his brown eyes narrow.

He knows for a fact that Bonnie wouldn't have suddenly decided to lower the barrier down. Something happened to her.

When they step outside, Caroline is sitting on the front steps, arms clasped around her knees and dried tear tracks staining her pretty face. She quickly stands up to face them, clearly surprised.

"The barrier's down, which means that it appears something awful has befallen your dear little witch friend," Klaus informs her nonchalantly.

She looks at both of them for a moment before sinking back down on the steps and burying her face in her lap as her body is wracked with sobs.

* * *

 After what feels like forever, they finally find Bonnie. But what they find is almost like the worst scenario.

Jeremy is laying on the cavern floor, unmoving and eyes wide open. Elena also sees Bonnie laying there, unmoving, except there's a man she's never seen before in her life hovering over Bonnie and trying to coax her back into consciousness.

"Jeremy!" Elena screams, running to her little brother. "No, Jeremy, come on," she gathers him into her arms. "You've got to wake up. Jeremy, you've got to—" She doesn't even notice Rebekah striding past her, going further into the cavern.

"Elena," Stefan says, crouching down by her, trying to calm her down.

"Who the hell are you?" Damon asks, keeping his eyes on the strange man by Bonnie.

"It's not really important right now, but my name is Henri."

He hears a soft moaning from Bonnie, indicating that she was finally coming to.

"Well, considering what we've just walked into and that we have no idea who the hell you are, I'd say it's pretty damn important."

"What the hell happened?" bonnie groans, pushing herself up into a sitting position with Henri's help.

"I was hoping you'd be able to tell us," Henri says.

"It's gone!" Rebekah screeches as she marches back towards where everyone else was. "The bloody cure is gone without a trace!"

"The cure? Where am I?" Bonnie asks.

"We're on the island, Bonnie. To get the cure. You know, the one that you almost prevented us from getting?" Damon replies dryly.

Bonnie's eyes widen slightly. "No…no, I don't remember that." She shakes her head. "The last thing I remember is Shane coming to my house…oh, God, he hypnotized me, didn't he?"

"Elena—" Stefan's voice echoes in the cavern.

"Stop telling me to calm down!" She yells. She then runs over to Bonnie. "Bonnie, Bonnie, you can fix this!" She says breathlessly. "You have to fix this. I need you to fix this!"

Bonnie looks back at Stefan and finally sees Jeremy. "Oh, no…" she whispers.

"She can't fix this," Henri replies adamantly. "Trying to bring him back will only kill her and even then, he'll still be dead."

"No, no, no," Elena cries, dissolving into sobs.

Bonnie sits there on the cavern floor, stunned. Shane hypnotized her (speaking of which, where did that son of a bitch go?), Jeremy's dead, the cure was gone, and…

"Silas is awake now, isn't he?" Bonnie asks Henri quietly.

He nods solemnly.

"And he did this to Jeremy, didn't he? And he's the reason why I don't remember anything," she continues. "Oh, God," she leans forward, pressing her face into her hands. "Oh my God."

Damon looks between Bonnie and Elena, deciding whether he'd be better off demanding to know what the hell was going on with Bonnie or trying to deal with Elena's tragedy.

"We need to get out of here," Henri says, standing up and pulling a shaky Bonnie up with him.

"Yeah, I don't think any of us are going anywhere with you. We don't even know you," Damon says, reaching out to grab Bonnie.

"Damon, it's fine," Bonnie replies. "We can trust him. And he's right. We can—" she breaks off, looking at a hysterical Elena. "We can figure out to do when we're back home."

He looks at Bonnie and Henri and considers arguing, but he knew when to prioritize.

"Fine," Damon says through gritted teeth. "Let's go."

* * *

 The way back to Mystic Falls is probably one of the worst trips to ever be taken.

Elena still hasn't let go of Jeremy's body, Stefan's still trying to console her, Damon's sitting there stoically with his jaw clenched, Rebekah's fuming, Henri is lost in thought, and Bonnie's just out and out confused.

Why would Silas leave her alive and wipe her memories? And where the hell did Shane go? Was he with Silas?

And Jeremy…Oh, God, Jeremy's  _dead._

Henri said that she couldn't bring him back, that even trying would kill her and  _still_ not work. But she's brought him back to life before, there just  _has_ to be a way. She couldn't just let him be dead.

"I'm going to go speak with Kol," Henri tells her softly when they reach Mystic Falls. "Do  _not_ do anything rash, please."

Then he's gone before she can even reply.

"Bonnie!" She hears Caroline yell before she's suddenly squished into her arms. "Oh, thank God! I thought something happened to you!"

Before she can say anything to Caroline, the blonde looks over and sees Stefan carrying Jeremy's body.

"Oh no…" she whispers.

"Put him upstairs in his room," Elena says to Stefan. Ever since they've left the cavern, she's been eerily calm.

"What—what do we do?" Caroline asks. "What  _happened?"_

"I don't know," Bonnie says quietly. "It was Silas, but he wiped my memory, so I don't remember  _anything_ since just before we left for the cure."

Caroline's speechless.

"And…and now Jeremy's dead and I should do  _something,_ but I don't know if I can," Bonnie continues, "I mean, I've fixed this before, but I might die this time around and even then that still might not bring him back…but, I should try, shouldn't I?" She takes a deep breath and licks her lips. "I mean, how am supposed to just let him be dead?"

"Listen to me," Caroline says, finally finding her words. " _You_ aren't  _letting_ anything happen." She reaches out to grasp Bonnie's shoulders. "Shane took advantage of you and that's why this happened. And we will figure out what to do."

There's still a million questions left unanswered such as just what Bonnie was doing with Kol, but Caroline knows that now is certainly not the time for that. Instead, she leads Bonnie back into the Gilbert home.

"But what about his ring?" They hear Elena say from the living room. "I mean, his tattoo was gone, so he's human again. It had to have worked, right?"

No one has the heart to tell her that it probably doesn't work that way. They're never that lucky.

The front door opens and Matt comes walking through into the living room.

"I got a call from Caroline, but she didn't really tell me what happened…"

"It's Jeremy," Elena says slowly, "He's…well, it's gonna be fine. It's all gonna be fine."

Caroline looks at a loss of what to say and Bonnie doesn't really know either.

_The Grimoire!_ She thinks suddenly. Maybe there would be something in there. Granted, she didn't have spirit magic anymore, but maybe she could take whatever she fines and just substitute Expression instead.

"I'm going to go home and get my Grimoire," she says aloud. "Maybe there's something there that can help."

"I'll go with," Caroline says.

"No, I think you should stay here," Bonnie replies.

"Look, from the sounds of it all, no one should be on their own right now, so I'm going with you whether you like it or not."

"Yeah, I think it's a good idea," Elena says. "Don't worry, we'll be here when you get back. I mean, we need to be for when Jeremy wakes up."

"God, she's in total denial," Caroline murmurs when they're outside.

"Can you blame her?" Bonnie replies. "I mean, Jeremy's the only family she has left and…honestly? I don't want to believe it all that much myself."

The car ride to her house is mostly silent until Caroline suddenly decides to speak up.

"You're not—" she pauses to take a deep breath. "Please, don't tell me you'll actually kill yourself to bring Jeremy back. I mean…you've always been so brave and selfless and sometimes I wish I was more like that, but…when is enough finally enough?"

"If I can do something about it, then I should," Bonnie replies evenly.

Caroline suddenly swerves to pull the car over, causing Bonnie to quickly clutch the door to prevent being slammed into.

"Jeez, Caroline, what're you—"

"No, you shouldn't! You shouldn't do anything about it, not if it'll cost you your life!" Caroline practically yells. "Look, I don't want Jeremy to be dead either, but you dying to bring him back wouldn't make things any better. That's if it even brought him back, which it sounds like there's a good chance it wouldn't."

"I've done it before."

"But that was different. You had the power of a hundred dead witches. And…" Caroline bites her lips. "And I just, I need you to be here with me, okay? I'm sorry I'm selfish, but Tyler's gone because and I just…I need you. And you're life matters, too. Do you think Jeremy would want you to risk your life like this?"

Bonnie nods. "You're right…I know you are, but I just…I…"

Caroline unbuckles her seatbelt and leans over to pull Bonnie into a hug. "I know."

* * *

 Caroline drops Bonnie off at home and tells her that she'll be back soon after checking up on the situation with Elena. However, before she leaves, she makes Bonnie swear that she would still be there and wouldn't try anything.

The house is mostly dark when she walks in, save for a couple of dimmed lights here and there.

"Bonnie?" Her dad calls out from the kitchen.

She walks silently into the kitchen where her dad was sitting. There's a cup of coffee in front of him and Bonnie realizes that he'd actually been waiting up for her.

She guesses that he must have realized that something was wrong because he stands up and asks, "What happened, Bonnie?"

She looks at her dad standing there and all the sudden she feels like a child when she would run into Grams's arms and cry out whatever problem she was having. But it's not Grams there; it's her father—the father that she had always felt estranged from—standing there instead. Yet, she finds herself suddenly clinging to him for dear life.

"Jeremy's dead," she tells him in between sobs. "Jeremy's dead and I can't do anything about it."


	9. Chapter 9

Her father carefully tucks her in bed, pulling the blankets around her. It makes her feel small, like a child, but it's comforting.

She tries to sleep, but instead she does a lot of staring. She stars at the walls, the ceiling, at absolutely nothing. She feels nothing, too. Just blank numbness. She wonders if this is how vampires feel when they shut their emotions off. Unfortunately for her, though, she doesn't have an off switch and she knows all her emotions will come flooding back to her by morning.

She hears the front door opening and Caroline quietly talking with her dad, but she can't make out the exact words.

"Hey," the blonde whispers as she enters Bonnie's room. She crawls onto the opposite side of the bed next to Bonnie.

"What happened? I mean, when you went back to Elena's." The words sound distant, almost as if they aren't coming from her, but they are.

Caroline bites her lips, clearly debating whether she should tell Bonnie or not.

"Elena, uh…she totally lost it. She was gonna burn her house down, but then Damon used the sirebond to make her shut her emotions off."

"Huh," Bonnie says emotionlessly. "It must be nice to be able to turn off someone's emotions when you don't want to deal with them."

Caroline doesn't reply.

"You should get some sleep. Your dad's really worried about you," she says after a few moments of silence.

"Yeah. Who knew that all it took was our lives imploding around us and an impending apocalypse for him to actually take an active interest in me and my life?" Bonnie says dryly.

More silence.

"You gonna stay the night?" She asks Caroline.

"Yeah," she replies. She takes Bonnie's hands in hers, squeezing her fingers lightly.

* * *

 When Bonnie wakes up in the morning, Caroline's gone.

She slowly sits up, running a hand through her tangled hair. When she looks over at her night stand, she sees her phone blinking.

There's two text messages waiting for her; one from Kol and one from Caroline. The message from Kol only has a time on it.

She's actually surprised that he hasn't come and hunted her down himself. She wonders if he wants her dead for all that's happened.

_He would have come after you by now if that was the case,_ she reminds herself.

She looks at the text message from Caroline.

_Sorry for leaving. I'm worried about Elena and I have a feeling that Damon is going to make things worse (as usual). Matt will be dropping by soon._

She looks at the time and realizes that she has a little under an hour before Kol wants to meet. She has no idea how she's going to slip away from Matt, given that he probably won't want to let her out of his sight with everything that's happened.

She gets up, throws and some clothes and attempts to tame her massively tangled hair, but she can't really bring herself to care all that much about her appearance right now.

When she goes downstairs, she's surprised to find Matt already in the kitchen with a box of doughnuts on the table on a pot of fresh coffee.

"Morning," he says with a small smile. He looks just as exhausted as she did, with dark circles around his eyes and wrinkled clothes.

She attempts to smile back as she sits down, but it comes out as more of a grimace.

She reaches out to pry the doughnut box open. Despite not having eaten in twenty-four hours, Bonnie isn't really hungry, but she feels like she should be doing  _something_ other than just sitting there.

"Half of these are bear claws," she observes, "Which everyone knows are my favorite…don't tell me there's even more bad news."

"Nothing worse than everything that's already happened," Matt says, trying to carefully pick his words. "Uh, Caroline left because her mom called her this morning, saying that Elena burned her house down with Jeremy's body in it."

"Oh." Bonnie doesn't know what else to say. It never occurred to her what they would do with Jeremy's body. Were they supposed to just bury a charred corpse now?

She breaks down into heavy sobs.

"Hey," Matt says, enfolding her into his arms. He doesn't bother with any cliché 'you'll be okay, everything's gonna be okay, it's all okay.' Because it's not okay.

After what feels like forever, her sobs dissolve into hiccups and she pulls away from Matt. There's a huge wet patch on his shirt from her tears.

Matt sits a cup of warm coffee in front of her and then they both sit in silence.

When the time for her to meet with Kol nears, Bonnie has no idea what to say to Matt.

"I, um, I have to…" Bonnie begins. Her voice is gravelly from her crying. "I have to go do, uh, something," she finishes lamely.

"What?" Matt asks, clearly confused.

It's in that moment that Bonnie wonders why she should bother keeping up any secrecy. Caroline had to have already known and Damon probably did, too (and it would be nothing short of a pure miracle if he hadn't spilled the beans to anyone who would listen).

"I have to go meet with Kol," she confesses.

"Kol?" In another life, Bonnie might've found it comical how his ocean blue eyes nearly bug out of his head.

Poor Matt…always so out of the loop. Bonnie can't help but wonder if it may be something to be envious about.

"Caroline already knows this and I'm assuming pretty much everyone else does by now, but I've been working with Kol to stop Silas from rising the entire time." Pause. "Which obviously failed."

Silence.

"Wow," Matt says. "I mean, I guess in retrospect it explains some things, but…working with Kol doesn't exactly sound like you, Bon."

"Well, desperate times…" she almost whispers, suddenly feeling so small, "…it's hard when you know no one else will be on your side."

"Caroline was," he tells her. "Maybe she didn't understand all your reasons, but when you believed that getting the cure wasn't good, she trusted you. She knew the second you left that something was seriously wrong and practically tore apart the town to find out. And I…" Pause. "I believed you had a good reason for not wanting to help with the cure, too, but you never even bothered to talk to me. Not that anyone really does."

"Oh, Matt…" Bonnie whispers, not sure what else to say.

"It's okay," he says with a thin smile. "Well, maybe 'okay' isn't the right word, but I get it. I'm human and I'm not exactly much help to anyone."

"Yeah, you are," she replies. "You're one of my best friends and I don't know what I would ever do without you."

His thin smile turns into something a little more genuine.

"Well," he says, "I have a feeling that I can't talk you out of meeting with Kol, so let's go."

"Uh, you're not going with," Bonnie tells him.

"Look, Bon," Matt says, "I know you can take care of yourself. Really, I do. But I'm not leaving you alone. Partially because you're one of my best friends, too, and partially because Caroline would have my head."

She quickly weighs the cons inn her head. While she's sure Kol wouldn't hurt her, she's not so sure that he wouldn't hurt Matt. However, she's confident that she could easily put Kol in his place if he tried anything.

"Okay," she says finally.

Bonnie spends the drive to Kol's place, filling him in on what she and Kol had been trying to do earlier, how Shane hypnotized her, how Silas selectively erased her memory.

" _This_ is where Kol has been all this time?" Matt asks, almost incredulously.

"Yep," she replies, snapping her seatbelt off.

"It's a long way from that gigantic mansion, but I guess that's kind of the point."

"You know, you can take my car and leave if you want," Bonnie says. "I know you and Kol don't exactly…uh, get along." What a big, fat understatement that was.

"Nope. Not a chance."

They make their way to the building together.

Kol opens the door to his apartment before she can even knock. This is the first time she's been face-to-face to him since she unwillingly trapped him in that one room. The only thing that looks any different about him is the light stubble covering the lower half of his face.

"I didn't tell you to bring an entourage with," he says, narrowing his eyes at the sight of Matt.

"One person is hardly an entourage," Bonnie replies, pushing past him. Matt follows behind her closely. She sees that Henri is also in the apartment as well.

"How's the hand, mate?" Kol asks Matt sardonically, nodding at the hand he had once crushed.

"Don't start, Kol," Bonnie snaps. "These past few days have been complete and total hell and it's only going to get worse from here on out and I am so not in the mood."

"You're right, things are only going to get worse," Kol replies, "Which is why we're going to start doing what we can."

"What we can?" Bonnie asks, confused. "What does that mean?"

"I've been thinking of a solution to your memory problem," Henri says. "There's a very old method that can repair what memories were taken from you in that cave and it would also repair your connection to the spirits."

Her brows furrow upon hearing that.

Repair her connection to the spirits? She'd be lying if she says she didn't feel any trepidation at that thought. She can't help, but blame them, in part, for all this mess.

If they hadn't cut her off, tortured Grams, she wouldn't have desperately sought another form of magic…none of this would be happening and Jeremy would still be alive.

"What if I don't want that connection repaired?" Bonnie asks.

"Expression kills, Bonnie," Henri tells her. He looks almost pleading and Bonnie wonders why he cares so much. He barely even knew her. "It burns brightly for a time, but it will kill you eventually."

"If you knew all this, why didn't you say something sooner, then?" Matt demands to know.

It's a valid question.

"Remind me: What purpose do you serve again?" Kol asks, tilting his head slightly.

Despite knowing that Kol can kill him before he even begins to blink, Matt squares his shoulders and looks at him dead-on.

"This was always a part of my plan," Henri replies, ignoring the brewing fight. "However, things have become much more dire and it is important to do this."

"Thanks for including me in on this plan," Bonnie replies sarcastically. "You're really making me trust you right now."

"I've had plenty of chances to harm you if I wished to do so," Henri reminds her patiently. "I found you in that cave, completely defenseless."

Okay, so he has a point there.

"Before I decide, what is this method?" Bonnie asks.

"You'll drink a potion, which I have already created, and be put into a slumber of sorts where the channels will then be open for you to do…a sort of spiritual quest of sorts, I suppose you can call it."

"That's very vague," she replies flatly.

"Because it's different for every person," he clarifies. "Some people are made to explore their past, others their present, some their future, and some even all three...it depends on you and the spirits."

"And how do you know this will bring my memories back?"

"Because the spirits would work to lift whatever magic Silas used on your mind."

"You don't have to do anything you don't want, Bon," Matt tells her. "We could always find another way."

"I don't think we have a lot of time for that," Bonnie replies quietly. She bites her lip thinking, but then squares her shoulders in resolve. "Silas killed Jeremy. I need to know exactly who he is if I'm going to kill him and I  _will_ kill him one way or another."

She looks at Kol whose annoyed look is replaced by a more solemn one. She can't help but wonder if he cares at all about what happened to Jeremy. She remembers that they had supposedly been friends when Jeremy was in Denver, but she always assumed that that had all been an act (especially since he had been more than willing to kill Jeremy over the cure and raising Silas).

"So, uh, what do we need to do this?" Bonnie asks, clearing her throat.

"I've already prepared everything," Henri says. He heads to the small kitchen and returns with a glass that's only a fourth full of dark liquid. "After you drink this, you're going to want to lie down."

With a wry smile, Kol gestures to his bed. Other than a table, it's the only other furniture in the apartment. Bonnie almost considers lying on the floor.

_Well, if I'm going on a supposedly life-changing journey, I might as well be comfortable,_ Bonnie thinks wryly. She stiffly perches herself on the edge of the bed.

Her laying in Kol's bed surrounded by Matt, Kol, and Henri sounds like the beginning of a really, really God-awful joke and for what felt like the billionth time, Bonnie wonders just what her life has come to.

"Bottoms up," Bonnie says, downing the liquid as quickly as possible. She knew it was going to taste nasty and it really does. She even has to resist her gag reflex trying to make her choke on it.

"You know, I never pictured you in my bed under these circumstances," Kol casually comments, as Bonnie stiffly lays back.

Both Bonnie and Matt glare at him, which he ignores.

"Just relax," Henri advises her. She notices that he has a habit of ignoring all of Kol's comments, smart man that he is. "It won't take long for it to start."

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes.


	10. Chapter 10

It doesn't feel any different than a dream. But the first thing Bonnie had learned when she became a witch was that most dreams weren't  _just_ dreams.

It takes her a moment to get her bearings, but once she does, she realizes that she's in the old witch's house. It's not so much the  _where_ she is that's important, but the  _when,_ she quickly realizes.

Right in front of her, she sees herself clinging to Jeremy's lifeless body like that night almost a year ago.

"Emily, please!" She hears herself crying out.

Bonnie looks away from the scene in front of her, confused. She thought this journey would be her having to confront the spirits directly or something, not having to relive the past.

"Bonnie," an all too familiar voice says near her.

"Grams?" she whispers, turning to look at her. "Wh—I thought—I thought that after what I did…the spirits—" she can't even finish a coherent sentence.

Grams smiles softly and a little sadly. "I know, child." Pause. "The spirits decided to appoint me as your guide on this journey."

Bonnie doesn't know what to say.

She looks back at the scene in front of her, sees the tears and blood smeared on her face, hears her own heartbroken pleads to the spirits, to Emily.

"This is where you took your first wrong turn," Grams tells her.

"Wrong?" Bonnie asks. "What do you mean 'wrong'?"

"You played with life and death here, Bonnie."

"What? But…it's  _Jeremy_? How was I supposed to just let him be dead?" She whispers. Then, she finds herself growing angry. "If it was so wrong, why did Emily help me?"

"She blamed herself for getting you into this whole vampire mess, so she granted you that favor. But just because you have the ability to do something, doesn't mean you should, Bonnie," Grams tells her sternly.

The scene in front of her suddenly changes. She's still in the old witch house, but this time, she sees herself and Grams.

"I don't want you getting mixed up in this vampire business," Grams says sternly.

"I was trying to protect you. Our family doesn't have a good history of vampires."

"That's the world's biggest understatement." A pause, a sigh. "How was I supposed to stay out of the vampire business, though, considering who my friends are?"

"Are they really  _still_ your friends?" Grams asks.

Bonnie bites her lip and looks away from the scene in front of her. She thinks back to the fight she and Elena had, about how she felt like maybe she really didn't know her best friend anymore, how maybe she hasn't known for some time.

"Caroline is, Matt is," she says softly. Grams looks at her knowingly.

The scene changes again. This time she's in Caroline's house with her mother's dead body on the bed and the vague sounds of Caroline talking to Elena.

"What is this?" Bonnie snaps, turning towards Grams. She tries to keep her voice even, but it cracks a little. "Are the spirits trying to torture  _me_ now?"

Grams firmly grasps her shoulders. "That's not what this is about. You've lost your way, Bonnie, and part of finding it again is realizing how and why you lost it in the first place and you lost it when you decided that."

Looking away from Grams, she watches herself sitting by her mother's body.

"It's not like I  _want_ these things happen," Bonnie says quietly. "I try to do what I can…and I know, I know I'd be better off walking away most of the time…but what kind of person would I be if I turned my back on the people I care about?"

"Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is letting them stand on their own," Grams tells her gently. "They've relied on your magic for so long and you've allowed them to do so at your own detriment. They can learn to take care of themselves."

"And if they don't?"

"Isn't it about time you valued your own life?" Grams rebuts.

Deep down, Bonnie knows she's right. The past few years of sacrificing (both willingly and unwillingly) hasn't gotten anybody anywhere and now, with Silas on the loose, they were pretty much staring down into the mouth of hell.

"So what do I do now?" Bonnie asks quietly, wiping a few stray tears that have fallen from her eyes.

"You're going to go back, find a way to get rid of this Silas bastard for  _your_ sake, and then you will graduate high school and leave Mystic Falls because you are too smart and too beautiful to stay there forever and then you will live a wonderful life away from all of this."

The tears Bonnie had just wiped away are replaced with more tears as she nods. "I really miss you."

Grams embraces her gently. "I know, baby, I know."

They stay like that for a little while before Grams releases her.

"So…" She dreads this next part, but she knows what needs to be done. "What, um, what about the memories Shane took away from or all the Expression magic?"

Grams smiles sadly and extends her hand.

* * *

_It's eerie seeing Bonnie like this,_ Matt thinks as he paces next to the bed where she lays.

"You do realize that pacing back and forth like an idiot isn't going to do anything, right?" Kol asks dryly from his seat at a small table in the room.

Matt doesn't respond.

"She'll be alright," Henri assures him. "What's happening to her right now is no small thing, but she will be alright."

Then, Bonnie wakes up with a gasp and almost immediately lurches for a small wastebasket, emptying the contents of her stomach. Matt immediately rushes to her, but Henri gets to her first, supporting her on her shaking legs.

"It's Shane," Bonnie gasps out. "I—I saw everything and Silas is Shane. It's been him this whole time."

When she looks at Henri, sees his concern for her, something suddenly clicks in her mind. She drifts back to the words Grams had said to her after she relived her memories of Shane.

" _You're strong enough to defeat him, I have no doubts about that," Grams said, holding her tightly. "And you've got family looking out for you."_

At first she had just assumed Grams was talking about her dad, but seeing Henri now, it finally clicks.

_We're family. Somehow, we're family._

She never would have guessed it, but she knew that deep down it was true. She wonders why he would keep it from her, but she figures that whatever must have happened in his deep, dark past, he wanted to keep it buried as much as possible.

_That's not important right now,_ she reminds herself.

Henri helps her to a seat and she begins to explain everything, her voice shaking the entire time.

* * *

Bonnie stands in the small bathroom in the apartment once she's done explaining everything, gargling water in an attempt to get rid of the taste of bile that sits in her mouth.

She had known that reliving her lost memories of what happened in the cave was going to be difficult, but it was so much worse than she thought. Having to relive the helplessness, seeing Jeremy die right in front of her…

She looks up from the sink in the mirror. Her hair is a tangled mess and there's bags and dark circles under her eyes.

_I look so…worn down,_ Bonnie thinks. It's not so much that she cares  _that_ much about her physical appearance (although, she longs for the carefree days when she did), but seeing the days, weeks, months,  _years_ of what…well,  _everything_ has done to her staring back at her, she can't help but be a little disturbed by it all.

She scoops one more handful of water in her mouth, swishes it a bit, and then spit back out in the sink before leaving the bathroom.

She can hear Henri and Kol arguing.

"That still leaves the matter of what he wants with cure, where it is, and where  _he_ is, and  _how_ do we get rid of him," Henri tells Kol.

They were fighting about Shane.  _No,_ Bonnie reminds herself.  _Silas. He's Silas._

She half tunes into their arguing, vaguely wondering if they realized she had even re-entered the room, instead getting lost in her own thoughts about Silas. Matt looks at her with concern as she sits down next to him. He covers her small hand in his much larger one and she takes some comfort in the warmth.

_He wanted the cure for some reason,_ Bonnie thinks.  _So he'll be looking for it. If he hasn't found it already. If only there was some way to figure out where the cure is…_

"I think I know where he is," Bonnie says suddenly and everyone turns to look at her. "Well, not exactly. But...wherever the cure is, that's where he would be…or at very least, we know he's looking for it and whatever he wants it for obviously can't be good. So, since I have my magic back—my  _regular_ magic—we should see if there's a spell I can do figure out where the cure might be."

Kol grins widely. "It's good to finally be back in business."


	11. Chapter 11

"Scrying is a lot harder when you're looking for an object instead of using blood to scry for a person," Bonnie explains as she spreads a map out on the table. "It takes a lot more energy and I'm a bit rusty, but if I focus enough, I should be able to do it." Instead of using blood as a conduit to point her in the right direction, she'd be using water.

Taking a deep breath, she closes her eyes and begins to murmur the incantation. Even though she wouldn't admit it, a part of her was worried that her magic maybe hadn't come back, but then she begins to feel the power coursing through her and for once something is actually going right.

When she opens her eyes, she feels exhausted, but she sees that the little water droplets had conglomerated on New York City.

"Well, I suppose that's a start," Kol says with a raised eyebrow. "We can pinpoint the exact location once we're there. You should be at full strength by then."

Bonnie nods in agreement. Dropping everything to head to New York isn't the most appealing idea and she's not sure how she'll explain it to her dad, but it was necessary.

"Wait," Matt interjects. "You aren't seriously going to head off to New York just like that, are you?"

"I kinda have to, Matt. I mean, I'm not thrilled by it, but Silas wants the cure for God knows what. We need to get ahold of it before he does."

"Well, then me and Caroline will come with you."

She ignores Kol's scoff in the background.

"I appreciate that, really, I do. But…I think you and Caroline should stay here to help out with Elena. Stefan and Damon are probably screwing things up even more as we speak."

What she doesn't say is that if Silas was possibly in New York after the cure as well, then things would get really messy really fast. She doesn't think she'd survive it if something happened to Matt or Caroline; not after everything she's been through.

"I know you don't trust them," Bonnie says to Matt, referring to Henri and Kol. "But I do. Right now, we have the same goal and that's enough."

"All right," Matt says reluctantly. "I'll trust  _your_ judgment…but just know that Caroline will have my head for this."

Bonnie lets out a small chuckle.

"Well, now that's all settled," Kol cuts in dryly. "I'll go and make arrangements."

"Okay," Bonnie replies with a nod. "I'll go pack some things and be back here in about an hour."

* * *

She's so lame. She really is.

Once she coaxed Matt into leaving, she had written a not for her father:

_Dad,_

_I'm sorry to do this to you again, but trust me when I say that what I'm doing is for_ _ everyone's _ _good. With luck, I should be back soon._

_-Bonnie_

It was horribly cryptic and she knows it's going to make her dad freak, but what was she supposed to say? That she accidentally woke up a powerful immortal being that was unkillable and wanted a cure for vampirism to do who the hell knows what and that she needed to get to it first?

She had a feeling that that would go over even worse than her crappy little note.

After haphazardly throwing some clothes into a duffle bag along with her grimoire, she finds herself on a plane with Kol and Henri, headed towards New York.

It's not a long flight, but she's exhausted from everything that's been happening and she finds herself dozing off. It's not a restful nap, though.

Henri wakes her when they land. She quickly grabs a map of New York before they leave the airport so that she could scry for the exact location of the cure. As they make their way out of the airport, Kol explains that he owns a penthouse in the city.

"You seem to have a place pretty much everywhere," Bonnie comments.

"It certainly comes in handy," Kol says with a grin.

The penthouse is large and beautiful and has an amazing view of the city. Part of her wonders, though, if it's too conspicuous, especially when compared to the little studio apartment just outside of Mystic Falls. However, Kol has always had a method to his madness.

Just as Kol pointed her in the direction of a room, her phone began to ring insistently. A look at the screen told her it was Caroline. As much as a part of her would like to, there's definitely no avoiding this one.

With a sigh, she throws her duffle bag onto the bed before hitting the answer button on the screen.

"Have you lost your friggin' mind?!" Caroline screeches, barely letting Bonnie get a hello out. "How you could you just up and leave—with  _Kol,_ no less—after everything that's happened?"

"I'm sorry," Bonnie says. "I'm working on our Silas problem. I won't get into the details because, trust me, the less people that know, the better."

"With  _Kol_?"

"I know, I know. I owe you a huge explanation…about everything," Bonnie replies with a sigh. "But for now, please trust me?"

She hears Caroline sigh on the other end of the line. "Well, I can't make any promises that I won't head out to New York and track you down, but I'll try." Pause. "Your dad called me earlier today to ask about you. He's really worried."

"I know," Bonnie answers softly, her heart sinking a bit. "Honestly, though? I'm a bit conflicted…I mean on the one hand, he's never had a problem taking off on business trips whenever he felt like it, so…"

"Well," Caroline says carefully. "For whatever it's worth, he really seems to be trying now…and no one is better off without their parents."

"So, how's Elena?" Bonnie asks, quickly changing the subject.

"Don't think I'm not catching onto you're little subject-changing, Bonnie Bennett," Caroline shoots back. Then she sighs. "Elena is a fucking nightmare, to be honest. She's been a bitch to everyone, has been feeding on anyone she feels like, and even threw a huge party at the Salvatore's. Then, when my mom came to shut it down, Elena attacked her. So, me and Stefan had to chase her down in the middle of the friggin' woods—because who the fuck know what Damon was even doing?—and she tried to kill both me  _and_ Stefan."

"Oh. Uh, wow. That is really bad," Bonnie replies dumbly, not sure what else to say. She knows that vampire without their humanity could be horrible, but the thought of Elena…

"We really need to get Damon to reverse it," Bonnie says.

"Yeah, but without luck, that wouldn't work." Pause. "I'm sorry. I know you've already got about a billion issues on your plate and I really don't mean to worry you more," Caroline tells her apologetically.

"No. I need to know these things," Bonnie says. She begins to hear Kol and Henri talking outside her room, which was a signal to her that she should probably wrap up the conversation and begin looking for the cure.

"I'm sorry, Caroline, but I should go now. I promise I'll call you soon, though, okay?"

"Okay," Caroline says, obviously reluctant to let her go. "Just be careful, okay?"

After she finishes saying her goodbyes to Caroline, she steps out of the room and goes to rejoin Henri and Kol.

"Alright, let's pinpoint exactly where this cure is," she says.

Henri had already spread the map out on the glass living room coffee table and there was already a small dish of water waiting for her.

She dips her fingers in the water and holds them over the map, letting the drop drip onto the paper before beginning the spell. When she finishes, the water had converged in Manhattan.

"Well, whoever has it," Bonnie tells them, "That's where they are."

"Let's get going, then," Kol replies, already heading towards the door.

"Are you strong enough for this?" Henri asks Bonnie, clearly concerned.

"Well, I'm definitely not at full strength, but with you and Kol there, hopefully that won't be a problem.

* * *

"Since your ancestor made this cure, you should be able to sense the magic," Kol explains to Bonnie as they walk down the streets of Manhattan. "Just clear your mind and concentrate on it."

Bonnie's never tried it before, but as she does her best to focus on the cure and the cure alone, she finds that he's right. It's strange; she didn't know what to expect, what it would feel like. It reminds her of when she had first touched her cousin, Lucy. It was warm…and kindred, for lack of a better word.

As she leads them in the direction of where she's sensing the power (an alleyway, much to her displeasure), Bonnie's heart plummets.

"Katherine," Bonnie says.

It shouldn't surprise her, really. Katherine had always been an opportunist that showed up at the precise moment that she could  _really_ screw everyone over.

Still, though, the real question (well, questions, actually) were: What the hell did she want with the cure and how the hell did she get it?

When Katherine spins around the face them, her eyes widen in surprise a bit, but she quickly regains her composure.

"Bon Bon…I certainly wasn't expecting you here."

"You have the cure," Kol interjects, cutting to the chase. "So why don't you just hand it over before I do Nik a favor and rip you apart here and now?"

"Kol."

That voice didn't come from Katherine. It came from—

"Elijah? What're you—" Kol stops himself, glancing back at Katherine and then at Elijah again. "Oh, you've  _got_ to be kidding me." He actually laughs. "Still have learned in all these five hundred years?"

"That's enough, Kol," Elijah says evenly.

"So, tell me something," Kol continues, ignoring his elder brother's warnings. "While you've been up here having fun with your little doppelganger, did you ever give any mind to all the messages I left you? Or did you even bother to listen to them?"

"I listened to them."

Bonnie's pretty sure that's the only time she's ever actually seen Elijah physically falter.

She can also see the bitterness and anger in Kol's face and hear it in his voice. She even finds herself commiserating with him; she's all too familiar with the feeling one gets when their own family can't be bothered to give them the time of day.

"No matter," Kol says, quickly moving on. "She has the cure and we came all for it, so…"

"Do not take one step towards her," Elijah warns.

Kol's eyes narrowed. "Have you even asked yourself  _why_ she has the cure,  _what_ she plans to do with it? There's really only one plausible explanation. She plans on using it on Nike so she'd be able to kill him." Pause. "I know you didn't really give a damn about Finn and that you don't give a damn about me, but you certainly wouldn't let your dear Niklaus die, would you?"

"Elijah…" Katherine was actually getting a bit nervous now.

"Is this true?" Elijah asks Katherine, even though he's sure he already knows the answer.

"I've been on the run from him for  _five hundred years,_ Elijah. He slaughtered my entire family and he'll have no problem killing me the next time he sees me," Katherine says, steeling herself.

"I told you I would protect you."

"Like you did five hundred years ago?"

"Well, as truly enlightening as all of this has been, I need what we came here for," Kol interrupts.

"Stop, Kol," Elijah replies adamantly. "I will deal with this myself."

"I don't trust you to."

The two brothers started at each other ominously, neither making a move just yet.

 _This is really bad,_ Bonnie thinks, tensing up.  _This is going to get really messy really fast._

"Look," Bonnie says, moving in front of Kol. "There is a very old, very powerful immortal on the loose that wants this cure for reasons unknown. We need to make sure he doesn't get it and if he comes after Katherine or you, it won't be pretty."

Elijah looks at her and then looks at Kol.

"Trust me. I wouldn't be here with him," she gestures in Kol's general direction, "If it wasn't actually that dire."

Elijah doesn't respond at first, twisting his daylight ring thoughtfully instead.

"We will meet tomorrow morning to discuss this further. I will send you the address," Elijah tells Kol. "Katerina and I have quite a bit to discuss now."

"That's not—" Kol begins angrily, moving towards Elijah.

"Fine," Bonnie interrupts, placing a hand on Kol's chest to prevent him from advancing any further (although, everyone knew he could  _easily_ brush her off if he wanted to).

She's not thrilled about leaving in the cure with either Elijah or Katherine, but getting into a fight in the middle of a city in broad daylight certainly wouldn't solve any problems either.

"But, Elijah?" Bonnie says.

The vampire in questions raises his eyebrows.

"You've screwed me over  _multiple_ times before. Do this time and I'll be finding  _plenty_ of unpleasant ways to make you regret.

And upon seeing the steely expression on the Bennett witch's face, Elijah has no doubt that she would do just that.


	12. Chapter 12

She can't sleep. Every time she closes her eyes, she's brought back to that cave. She hears the sound of Jeremy's neck snapping, sees Silas looming over her, feels the paralyzing helplessness.

It's not the first time she's had trouble sleeping, though.

The years of fear and death had worn down her nerves to the point where it's not unusual to go through periodic bouts of insomnia. Thanks to the grimoire and a little research of her own, she discovered that combining lavender, hops, and valerian created quite the powerful sleeping remedy. She usually keeps some on hand for nights like these, but in her haste to leave for New York, it hadn't occurred to her to pack any.

After some more tossing and turning, she sits up with a sigh, running a hand through her messy curls. She leaves her room, heading towards the kitchen with the intent of getting a glass of water.

"You should be sleeping," Kol says when she enters the kitchen, startling her. He's sitting at a small table that's pushed into a corner, a half-empty bottle of brandy in front of him.

"I can't," she replies as she begins opening the cabinets, searching for a glass until she finds one. once it's filled with water, she hesitantly takes a seat on the side of the table adjacent from where Kol's sitting.

"Mother used to give us valerian when we had night terrors as children," he tells her.

She blinks, a little surprised by his sharing. "I use it sometimes along with lavender and hops," she replies before she can stop herself. "Unfortunately, I don't have any with me, though."

"Well, in the absence of herbs, this works quite well," Kol says, sliding over the bottle of brandy with a grin.

Late night-drinking with a vampire while being plagued by nightmares and with an impending apocalypse looming over her head doesn't seem like the brightest idea, but she grabs the brandy and takes a healthy swig. She does her best not to choke at the disgusting taste and the burning sensation that traveled from her throat to her gut.

"Did you know Henri was related to me?" Bonnie asks suddenly. "I found out during that whole vision quest thing or whatever you want to call it. I mean, I know that it's a pretty distant relation, but still," she clarifies upon his questioning look.

"I did," he answers.

"And neither of you ever thought to tell me. Why the big secret?"

"Personally, I didn't care whether you knew or not. If you want answers on that, you'll have to ask Henri."

She has so many questions about it all, but she supposes Kol does have point about asking Henri.

"Do you think Elijah will give us the cure?" Bonnie asks, changing the subject as she slides the bottle of liquor back towards Kol.

He shrugs, taking a swig from the bottle himself before replying, "Honestly? I don't have the faintest clue."

That's not exactly comforting, but it is what it is, she supposes.

With a sigh, she takes a large gulp of water before getting up to dump the rest in the sink. When she turns around, Kol is right in front of her, crowding her space and trapping her between him and the sink. Startled, she jumps back slightly, hitting the edge of the sink.

"When's the last time you actually slpet?" He asks her.

She wonders what the hell that actually has to do with anything.

"A day ago," she replies. "But…"

"Nightmares?"

"I really don't want to talk about this." She pushes at him, trying to get him to move out of the way. He remains steady, though.

"I can help with that," he tells her, looking down at her thoughtfully.

"How?" Bonnie asks, having a feeling that she won't like the answer.

"Simple. I go into your head while you sleep and you'd see whatever I choose."

"I'm a witch. That compulsion stuff doesn't work on me," she reminds him with a frown.

"It's not compulsion," he corrects. "And it'll work if you allow it."

"And why would I allow it? Why would I ever want you manipulating my mind in my sleep?"

"You already know that I won't harm you," Kol replies with a frown.

She almost asks why he would even offer in the first place, why he cares so much. After what's happened with Silas-Shane, she doesn't exactly relish the thought of letting anyone into her head. On the other hand, though, it would be nice to get the chance to sleep without having to relive those horrible moments in that cave.

"Okay," she says quietly, hoping that this doesn't backfire on her. "Uhm…what…how exactly does this work?"

He guides her back to her room and instructs her to lie down. She tenses, thinking that he'll use the opportunity for one of his cheeky jokes or that he'd climb in next to her.

Instead, he pulls a chair up next to her bedside. She almost asks why he doesn't need to sleep too, but figures that being a vampire— _an Original, especially—_ he probably almost never needs to sleep.

"Any particular requests?" He asks. "I've seen most of the world and am particularly fond of Eastern Europe and Asia. Kublai Khan's court was quite a good time. Although, Marco Polo could be quite the annoying little…"

Her head almost swims in trying to process all that.

"Uh, just surprise me, I guess," she says lamely. "Nothing violent, though. If you can even manage that."

"Just sleep," he tells her.

It's easier said than done. She feels awkward knowing that he's watching her and she's pretty sure that this is one of her dumbest ideas yet, if not  _the_ dumbest.

"Yeah, on second thought—"

He hushes her.

With an annoyed sigh, she flops back onto the pillows and shuts her eyes. It takes some time, but she eventually does drift off, though.

At first she finds herself back in that cave and she braces herself, but it quickly melts away. Instead, she's standing somewhere warm and there pink flower petals snowing down around her, their sweet smell permeating the air.

"Welcome to fifteenth century Japan," Kol says.

She takes in the sights around her, the cherry blossom trees and distant snow-capped mountains.

It's beautiful.

He tells her about the time he spent in a small samurai village, even taking her on a tour of the village. He even describes kotodama, the practice of finding magic in the use of certain words.

It's strange. She can see everyone in the village, but they can't see her.

"Of course, they weren't too fond of outsiders then—especially Westerners—which I suppose was smart on their behalf, so I had to compel them to allow me to spend some time here. They eventually figured it out and I had to move on, though" he tells her.

He grins at her disapproving look.

"How about a change of pace now?" he asks.

The scene melted away and the scent of cherry blossom was replaced with the smell of cigarette smoke and the sound of jazz playing in the background.

"1912 New Orleans," he tells her with a grin. "It's such a pity that I was in a coffin through the twenties, though. It sounds like that decade was riot."

She looks around, realizing they were in a bar or nightclub of sorts. When she looks at Kol, she sees that he dressed for the decade and when she looks down at herself, she sees that she is as well.

"Was the corset really necessary?" she asks with a grimace, shifting uncomfortably.

"Authenticity, darling," he replies with an even wider grin.

Before she can retort, he grabs her by the hand and twirls her into him. She stumbles a little bit, but he steadies her.

"What are you—"

"The point is to have fun and relax.

So, they dance and for the first time in a long time she's not plagued by any nightmares.

* * *

"I know the last thing we need is yet another problem," Stefan says to Caroline the next morning. "But I'm pretty sure Silas is in town."

"What makes you say that?" Caroline asks with a frown. She's pretty sure she doesn't want an answer to that, though.

"Because your mother just gave me a call. There's been a  _huge_ amount of blood missing from Mystical Falls General and from other nearby hospitals as well. And since we've always been careful not to take too much…"

Caroline groans and lets her head fall to the table.

"But wait…" she says suddenly, lifting her head off the table. "For someone that fooled us so ridiculously well, that seems a little  _too_ conspicuous…"

"Unless he  _wants_ us to know that he's here," Stefan finishes.

"Well, that's creepy."

"Any word from Bonnie?"

"Not since yesterday afternoon. I still have half a mind to head out there and track her down. Either way, she better give me a call today." Pause. "And shouldn't have Damon and Elena been back by now?"

"Well, since Elena's been such a…"

"Bitch whose behavior is border lining on evil?"

"Well, I was going to say difficult…"

Caroline just gives him a look.

"All I'm saying is that Damon must have his hands full."

"Yeah, but since when is Damon the best person to make sure that Elena doesn't go out and kill someone when she feeds? I mean, he's not exactly the paragon of self-restraint by any stretch of the imagination, to say that least," Caroline points out, thinking of how Bonnie told her how the college visit to Whitmore had been such a disaster on that particular front.

"I know. We really need to find a way to turn her humanity back on," Stefan says.

"Well, obviously, but how? Damon trying to use the sirebond to turn it back on didn't work and she obviously won't do it on her own, so…"

"There's got to be something," Stefan says. "A trigger that will make her turn it back on."

"This is way too much," Caroline groans, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Between worrying about Elena, worrying about Bonnie, worrying about this whole Silas thing, worrying about Tyler and whether Klaus is hunting him down or not because I haven't seen him around in a few days. And I've been trying to call Tyler, but he probably ditched his phone, which would've been smart, I guess. And—"

"Hey, hey, hey," Stefan says, placing his hands on Caroline's shoulders. "Everything is going to be okay."

"You don't know that," she replies.

Before Stefan can respond, they're interrupted by his cell phone ringing. It's Damon calling.

"Hello?"

Caroline listens on the phone call with her super-hearing and she really hopes she's not hearing what she thinks she's hearing. Because if she's hearing correctly, then Damon is currently on his way to New York with Elena.

"You took Elena  _where?_ " Stefan asks incredulously.

"Look, we can meet up with Bonnie and get the cure. It's the best chance to get Elena's humanity back. Besides, the plan has always been for Elena to get the cure and be human again from the get-go," Damon tells Stefan.

"Uh-huh. And bringing Elena into a massive city where she can easily slip away and blend with  _millions_ of people instead of waiting till Bonnie comes back so we can discuss what to do with the cure and how to help Elena makes sense because…?"

"Look, right now Elena's most concerned with having a good time. Where better to do that than the Big Apple?"

Before Stefan can respond, Damon already hung up the phone.

"Dammit!" Stefan swears, throwing his phone on the counter.

"What do we do? Should we go after them or…?"

"I don't know how much of a difference that would make," Stefan says frustratedly. "Call Bonnie and give her a heads up.

Caroline nods and pulls out her cell phone as she wonders just what else can possibly go wrong.

* * *

Apparently Elijah is living in a quaint little two-story house in a suburb an hour outside of the city.

Under any other circumstances, Bonnie probably would have found it comical that Elijah, immaculate suits, the cultured air he carries, and all, is living somewhere so  _normal._

He acts cordial as they enter his home, but Kol is clearly on edge the entire time. There's no sign of Katherine and Bonnie doesn't dare bring her up.

The elder Mikaelson sits them in a living room area and offers them a drink. They all refuse. It's never a good sign when Kol refuses a drink.

"Let's just cut to the chase. Then, I can happily disappear out of your life," Kol says.

"Very well. Explain to me why you're searching for the cure," Elijah replies calmly.

"What, was some part of 'powerful immortal that wants us all dead' confusing to you yesterday?"

"You don't like me very much," Elijah states, turning his attention to Bonnie.

_You've got to be kidding me,_ Bonnie thinks incredulously.

"Why would I? You're the reason my mother's vampire."

It was to save my family, something I'm sure you can understand," Elijah replies smoothly.

"Is that supposed to make me okay with it?"

"No. I did apologize for it, though."

"No, you apologized to  _Elena_ for what you did to  _her_ in a letter you wrote to  _her._ Not me."

Elijah doesn't respond. Apparently even he couldn't think of anything that could smooth things over.

"Enough of your stalling, Elijah," Kol says, his eyes carefully trained on his older brother. "Will you give us the cure or are we going to have even more of a problem?"

"And how do I know you can be trusted with it?" Elijah asks.

"Because it's me," Bonnie says flatly. 'Because we don't know what it actually is. It could be a cure for vampirisim or it could be something really horrible. And I for one don't want anything to be done with it until we know what it actually does."

"Just what exactly happened?"

The last thing Bonnie wants is to rehash all that. But she takes a deep breathe, squares her shoulders, and does it anyway. She tells him about Silas, about how Jeremy is dead now, that Silas wants the cure for some reason.

When she finishes, she's surprised that Elijah actually reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out a little vial. It looks like a sliver of perfectly shaped clear-colored quarts filled a little more than halfway with some sort of red liquid.

"Don't make me regret entrusting the two of you with this," Elijah says to Kol.

_That's really rich coming from you,_ Bonnie almost says to Elijah, but she knows when to not press her luck.

Kol takes it from him, looking like her hardly dares to believe that Elijah actually acquiesced to their request.

As they go to leave, it looks like Elijah has something more that he wants to say to Kol. Whatever it is, though, Elijah decides to keep to himself.

Bonnie thinks Henri's the smartest one out of them all, though. She notices that he barely ever interacts in these sorts of situations. Instead he watches, observes, analyzes.

She still wants to ask him about them being related, how he knew to cleanse her from Expression. She's not quite sure how to bring that all up, though.

"Well," Bonnie says as they return to the taxi that Kol had compelled to wait for them (Bonnie had very vocally disapproved of that, but Kol ignored her). "That went  _a lot_ better than expected."

Just then her cell phone began to ring. It's Caroline calling.

"And so much for that," Bonnie says with a sigh.

"So…you want the bad news or the worst news first? Although, I don't really know how to categorize any of it now that I think about it," Caroline says when Bonnie answers the phone.

"Surprise me," Bonnie replies dryly.

"Well, Silas is still in town. According to my mom, he's been rapidly draining the blood bank in  _several_ towns. And Elena and Damon are on their way to New York, looking to get the cure, too."

"Great," Bonnie groans. She can feel a throbbing headache beginning right behind her eyes and she's sure that either one of her eyelids would start stress-twitching any moment soon. "Well, thanks for the heads-up."

"How are things on your side?" Caroline asks.

"Well, it's all a very,  _very_ long story that I promise I'll tell you at some point, but we did actually manage to get the cure."

"Good," Caroline says, breathing a sigh of relief. "If you do see Elena, though, be careful. She's been really violent."

"Don't worry, I'll keep on my toes," Bonnie says. She can't help but feel a pang of sadness that it's come to this. Honestly, though, if they do come into contact with Elena, Bonnie's more would about what Kol might do to her.

"Well, I'm assuming you both heard that," Bonnie says when she hangs up the cell phone.

"Silas isn't a vampire," Henri says. "Why would he be taking so much blood…or any blood for that matter?"

Bonnie doesn't think that this is exactly the best conversation to be having in front of a taxi driver, but Kol also compelled him to forget everything once he dropped them off outside of the building where the penthouse was.

_Seriously, though, why couldn't we have just rented a car or something?_ Bonnie wonders before turning her attention back to the matter on hand.

"Well, whatever it is, we definitely won't like the answer," Kol says, an edge creeping into his voice once again.

"He's going to come after the cure once we're back in Mystic Falls," Bonnie realizes. "In fact, I'd be willing to be that the only reason he didn't follow us here is because he's just waiting for us to come back."

"Then I suppose our next step is to come up with a plan to ensure that he doesn't get it before we figure out what it really does."

Bonnie doesn't dare bring up the Elena issue, despite knowing Kol and Henri overheard that part as well. If she's being honest with herself, it's an issue she doesn't really want to deal with, either.


	13. Chapter 13

"I cannot believe I actually let you talk me into going to a bar tonight," Bonnie says to Kol as they stepped into the building.

"We're a step ahead for once," Kol says with a grin. "We should celebrate."

"Yeah, why didn't you talk Henri into coming, then?"

"Because he has a habit of disappearing before I can bring him into my more frivolous shenanigans."

 _Shenanigans? Really?_ Bonnie thinks, amused.

Okay, so the war is far from won, but Kol did have a bit of a point—things were looking up at least a little bit.

She had just downed a shot of tequila when she spots Elena and Rebekah on the dancefloor. And they're feeding on some poor girl.

"Oh my God," Bonnie mutters. "You've got to be kidding."

"Hmm?" Kol asks, pouring another shot from the bottle he had told the bartender to leave there. His line of vision follows Bonnie's until he also sees his sister and the newbie vampire.

As if on cue, Rebekah detaches herself from the girl's neck and meets Bonnie's eyes. She smirks and whispers to Elena who also turns.

"Hey, Bonnie," Elena all but purrs as she saunters up to Bonnie. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Elena," Bonnie says shortly. She vaguely wonders where Damon is, but she honestly wouldn't be too surprised if Elena and Rebekah and managed to give him the slip.

"So, dear brother, Elijah tells me that he gave you the cure," Rebekah says, ignoring Bonnie in favor of addressing Kol. "What are you going to do with it?"

"Why? Still have delusions about being a human, Bekah?"

"We haven't decided what we're doing with it," Bonnie quickly interjects as she sees Rebekah's face tighten in anger. "We don't even know if it actually  _is_ a cure."

"Personally, I don't give a damn what you do with the cure as long as you don't plan on using it on me," Elena says with a shrug. "Although, there is something I've been  _dying_ to ask you ever since I found out that you've been working with Kol," she continues with Cheshire smile, leaning closer to Bonnie. "Is he a good fuck? I really hope he is. Me and Caroline would sometimes talk about how you needed a good lay so you wouldn't be so uptight."

Bonnie's pretty sure that every ounce of blood in her body has rushed to her head.

"That's not…No!"

"Hmm, pity."

Still sputtering a bit, Bonnie allows herself to be guided out of the bar by Kol. She almost misses him giving Rebekah a warning look as the blonde looks like she's about to stop them.

"That…how could Damon just shut off her humanity like that? It's like she's not even herself anymore!"

"That's because she's not," Kol replies.

Bonnie groans. She'd heard from Caroline how bad it was, but she never actually realized it until she came face to face. She can't even begin to think how to handle that problem.

* * *

"The taxi will be here shortly to take us to the airport," Henri informs Bonnie the next morning.

"Thanks," Bonnie replies with a small smile. She's currently packing a few last minute things. "Ah, wait!" She calls out as Henri turns to leave. "There's something I've actually been meaning to talk to you about."

Henri turns back to her, face expressing curiosity.

"I, uh…maybe you should actually sit down for this."

Okay, that sounded really lame, but how is one supposed to start a conversation like this?

Henri's eyebrows raised, but he crossed the room to take a seat that she had pushed by the window.

"Uhm, when you helped send me on that vision quest to repair my connection with the spirits, my Grams told me something interesting. Apparently we're very, very distantly related. Did you know?"

"I did."

"Then, why didn't ever say anything?" Bonnie asks, confused.

"Would it have made a difference in how you perceived me in the beginning? Would you have ever even believed me?" Henri asks.

Would it have made a difference? She had instantly trusted Lucy and felt safe with her, but that was a lifetime ago and she's admittedly become a lot more jaded since then…

"I don't know," Bonnie replies honestly. "I guess not."

"You do deserve an explanation for it all, though," Henri concedes. "But for that we'd have to start at the beginning before I became a vampire."

Pause.

"I was born and I died in Haiti in the seventeenth century. It was an especially difficult time. Especially if you were a slave."

Bonnie inhaled sharply.

"I had just lost my wife. Our master had beaten her to death for some minor perceived transgression. I was desperate to bring her back and that's when  _he_ showed up."

Bonnie has a strong hunch who the  _he_ is thatHenri is referring to.

"He told me that I could bring her back, but it would take a new kind of magic. Certain rituals had to be carried out, sacrifices— _human_ and otherwise—had to be made. And, like the desperate fool I was, I went along with it. I didn't care."

Bonnie feels a chill starting in her spine.

"The first was sacrificing twelve humans. That was easy. I started with my master and the others who ran the plantation. And, truthfully, to this day I don't feel any remorse from it."

Bonnie doesn't blame him from that. Growing up in a state that had once been Confederate, her history classes liked to gloss over certain things,  _especially_ slavery. Grams, however, made damn sure that Bonnie (and, by extension, Elena and Caroline) knew what was what.

"This new magic felt exhilarating. I stopped questioning source. Eventually, I tried to bring my wife back even though I hadn't quite completed the sacrifices. The stranger had warned me against it, told me there was a different way, a better way—Silas," Henri continues. "I didn't care. I thought I could do it on my own." He pauses. "I didn't die right away, it was slow and painful. That's when Kol appeared. He gave me his blood and put me in transition and gave me the choice as to whether I wanted to complete it or not. I chose to just in case any others fell prey to my mistakes."

 _Like me,_ Bonnie thinks.

"That stranger…he was Shane—well, actually, Silas, right?"

"He must have had another witch cast a disguise on him or something of the sort because he looks nothing like he does now, but yes, I believe so."

Bonnie nods, not knowing what else to say.

"I am sorry, though," Henry says. "Perhaps if I had put things together more quickly, or had been more adamant in my warnings, or been more honest with you from the start."

"I would have never believed you," Bonnie replies with a small, sad smile. "I should have never trusted him in the first place. I've been taken advantage of enough times to have known better…"

Bonnie's phone rings, breaking up the conversation. Caroline's name flashes across the LCD screen.

"Hey, Caroline," Bonnie says after she slides the answer button across the scene.

"Bonnie, Bonnie," Caroline says breathlessly, desperation permeating throughout her voice. "You need to get home as soon as possible. It's your dad."

* * *

"Rudy Hopkins," Bonnie half-shouts, slamming into the nurses' station. She has barely arrived back in Mystic Falls when she comes barreling into the hospital, Kol and Henri hot on her heels. She has no idea why they followed her to the hospital and she doesn't really care. "Where is Rudy Hopkins?"

"Just a moment," the blonde nurse says, barely glancing at Bonnie.

"I don't have a moment! Where is my father and what the hell happened?"

"Bonnie!" she hears Caroline calling her from the other end of the hall.

Bonnie wastes no time in running to meet Caroline.

"They've managed to stabilize him," Caroline explains.

"But what happened?!"

"I don't know for sure," Caroline answers, biting her lip worriedly. "Mom said that he hasn't been in his office for a few days, so she went to go check on him and she found him unconscious and non-responsive. I tried vampire blood to heal him, but it won't work for some reason."

"Oh my God," Bonnie says, bringing a hand up to her eyes. "This cannot be happening. There's no way this is happening. Not after everything…"

"Miss. Bennett?"

She whirls around to face a middle-aged woman clad in light blue scrubs. The name card hanging from the lanyard around her neck identifies her as Madeline Gates, M.D.

"My dad, is he okay?"

"He's stable for now," the doctor replies.

"For now," Bonnie repeats. "Meaning…"

"Only time can tell," Dr. Gates replies. "He may wake up, he may not. He might…" the doctor seems a bit hesitant.

"Die," Bonnie finishes for her in a quiet voice. "He might die."

_God, this can't be happening. I can't deal with losing someone else._

"I assure you we'll do everything we can, but you should consider some things. Such as what arrangements have been made or need to be made concerning things such as a DNR and life support."

"Okay, thank you, we'll be sure to think about it," Caroline cuts in quickly, guiding Bonnie away from the doctor.

"I can't believe this is happening," Bonnie whispers. "I should have never left. I should have been there. I should have—"

"You'd probably be dead if you were," Kol cuts in. He had been surprisingly silent the entire time. "This is Silas sending a message. He knows we're onto something and he's getting desperate."

"You and Henri should go," Bonnie whispers. "Put the cure somewhere safe. Don't tell me where, just in case. Silas would expect me to have it. Or at least know where it is.

Kol nods and leaves. Henri lingers for a few moments.

"Silas is testing you," Henri tells her, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze. "Stay strong and stay resolved."

Bonnie nods, but she can't help the warm tears that were starting to roll down her face. Henri gives her shoulder another squeeze before he disappears down the hallway.

"Who was that?" Caroline asks.

"Henri. He's an old vampire, but it turns out he's also a very distantly related cousin…it's all a very long story." She pushes her dark hair out of her face. "I need to see my dad."

"Of course," Caroline replies. She takes Bonnie by the hand and leads her a short ways down the hallway.

"You'll come in with me, right?" Bonnie asks quietly, gripping Caroline's hand tighter. She feels so unbelievably tiny in the moment.

Bonnie takes a deep breath and steps into the room.

Her father lies in a hospital bed, a pristine white sheet pulled up past his mid-section. Bonnie can't keep track of all the wires, monitors, and tubes that were hooked up to him.

Bonnie's heart sinks to her stomach.

"What…what am I going to do if…"

"Don't," Caroline says. "Don't think about it. We'll deal with what comes when it comes."

 _Keep your resolve._ That's what Henri had said to her.

"I'm going to kill Silas. I don't know how and I don't care what it takes, but I'll be damned if I continue to let him take everything away from me."


	14. Chapter 14

"So, this is probably a horrible time," Caroline says as she barges into the hospital room. "But I picked up your prom dress and it is safely hanging in my closet for tomorrow night. I was going to pick mine up too, but somehow the store forgot to press mine," the blonde continues with a scowl.

_Prom?_

With all that's been happening, she'd honestly forgotten that prom had been looming in the horizon. Though, truthfully, even if she had remembered, she wouldn't have cared all that much. Just like she doesn't really care all that much now.

"I appreciate it, Caroline, I really do, but with everything that's been going on…"

"No, no, no, you are  _not,_ I repeat,  _not_ missing prom."

_Oh, boy._

"Care…"

"Look, I know it's really bad timing, but given how our lives are, there's not really gonna be a right time. And I don't want you to look back on this time in your life and feel robbed or like you missed out on anything."

 _Too late for that,_ Bonnie almost says aloud, but she manages to restrain herself.

The witch looks at the hopeful, yet determined face of her friend and sighs. Maybe Caroline does have a point about missing prom.

Besides, it's not like they've learned anything new about Silas or the cure in the past few days. What would a few hours change? Not to mention, Silas has apparently been laying low again because other than the dwindling supply of the blood bank in surrounding area hospitals, there's literally been no sign of the immortal.

"Okay," Bonnie concedes. "But I can't promise I'll be sticking around the whole time"

"Just a few hours," Caroline says with a bright smile. "You can come over to my house and I'll take care of your hair and makeup and everything and it'll be great! You'll see!"

Bonnie can't help but smile a little as the pretty blonde bounds out of the room.

* * *

"We've had to have gone through a hundred grimoires by now and only two of them even mentioned Silas at all.  _And_ it was just a passing mention," Bonnie groans, gently closing another one of the old and withered texts.

She has no idea how or why Kol has so many grimoires in his possession, but Bonnie has lost count of how many they've dug through.

Kol and Henri don't bother to look up from the grimoires they were reading as Bonnie complains.

"Hey, there's something I've been thinking about, though," Bonnie adds. "Is there a way for me to somehow speak with Quetsiyah? A séance or another spirit journey or something?"

"It's too risky," Henri replies adamantly. "Trying to contact a spirit that's over two thousand years old could easily kill you."

"Well, we basically have no options and no idea what we're doing," Bonnie retorts. She looks over at her phone screen to check on the time. "I should get going. Prom's tonight. Though, I really don't feel like going."

"Then don't," Kol replies dryly.

"You try saying no to Caroline. She'll have my head if I back out now. Her method of coping when disaster strikes is to party it off. Although, I actually kind of envy of her for it," Bonnie says with a small smile. "Anyway, depending on how things go or how long I decide to stick around there, I might come back here and try to do some research."

She exits the small apartment, not quite understanding the feeling of foreboding she has about tonight.

* * *

To say prom hadn't gotten off to a great start would have been a bit of an understatement.

Apparently, Elena stole Caroline's prom dress just to be antagonizing, causing Caroline to have quite the meltdown.

After calming the blonde vampire down and casting a few quick spells on the dress Caroline had worn to the Mikaelson ball, Caroline basically had a brand new prom dress.

"Oh my God, you are such a lifesaver!" Caroline gasps as she admires herself in the mirror.

"C'mon," Bonnie says with a small smile, brushing away a loose curl that had fallen into her face. "Matt's waiting for us in the limo outside.

When they get there, Bonnie can see that Caroline set prom up beautifully. A red carpet led to a tent that sparkled with white string-up lights. Large screens lined the path of the red carpet and displayed pictures.

It doesn't escape Bonnie's notice that Caroline had included  _a lot_ of pictures of their groups and not a whole lot of their peers.

"It's looks nice," Bonnie says, picking up the long, dark blue skirt of her dress to walk easier.

"Of course it does," Caroline replies with a prideful grin.

They have a good time and dance to a few songs and when Matt goes to get them all some punch, Elena strolls in with both Salvatores in tow. It's a sight that's become a little  _too_ familiar to the residents of Mystic Falls.

"Hey, Bonnie," Elena says as she saunters up to the witch. "I'm surprised that you don't have your Original boy with you tonight." Her grin is too toothy and saccharine for Bonnie's taste. "Although," the brunette continues, I'm surprised that you're here at all given what's happened to your dear old daddy."

"That's enough, Elena," Matt says, having overheard Elena as he returned to Bonnie and Caroline.

"Hey, I'm just stating the truth," Elena replies, amused. "I mean, between your dad and Jeremy and Grams and the mother who abandoned you and could care less that you exist…God, you're just a walking tragedy, aren't you, Bon Bon?"

Okay, that actually  _really_ hurt.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Caroline snaps, stepping in front of Bonnie with a clear intentions of getting into a physical altercation with Elena.

"Don't," Bonnie says softly.

"But…"

Bonnie was already disappearing out of the tent, sincerely hoping that neither Caroline nor Matt was following her.

She shouldn't let Elena's words get to her so much. Still, as much as she'd love to, she can't deny the chord that was struck deep within her.

" _God, you're just a walking tragedy, aren't you, Bon Bon?"_

"Aren't these things supposed to be about frivolous fun? What are you doing skulking out here?" A softly accented voice calls out to her.

Bonnie spins around to be me with Kol standing there, dressed to the nines.

"What…?"

"What can I say?" He says with a shrug, stepping closer to her. "I was really bored."

"So you chose to go to a high school prom? Shouldn't a thousand year old Original vampire have better ways to entertain themselves?" Bonnie teases with a small smile.

Truthfully, though, she's relieved by the distraction that his sudden appearance has provided.

He shrugs once again, before pulling her into his arms and twirling her around.

The action brings her back to that little bar in 1912—the one that Kol had shown her in her dreams. She finds her face heating up a bit, but chooses not to wonder why that may be.

She allows herself to get lost in the dance, but the more she thinks about it, the more something feels unsettling in the pit of her belly.

Kol had seemed utterly indifferent to her earlier mentions of prom. And, really, wouldn't he have something better to do?

A chill of realization spreads throughout her whole body.

"Silas," she whispers, immediately trying to leave his embrace. His grip is iron, though.

"Well, I certainly didn't think you'd catch on so soon," he says with a sinister grin. "I thought maybe you'd find this form more enticing—well, you obviously do because of how your heart fluttered when you saw me—but apparently not enough to distract you." Pause. "Maybe you prefer this?"

The sandy brown hair turns darker and the lithely muscular lines of Kol's body become bulkier. And suddenly, Jeremy is standing in front of her.

 _No, not Jeremy,_ she reminds herself.  _Not Jeremy._

"Stop it," she says, her voice trembling much to her displeasure. She manages to break out of Silas's grip and step back.

"Okay, maybe I'm having a  _little_ too much fun with this," he admits. The boyish grin—Jeremy's smile—makes her stomach churn and for a moment she honestly think she's going to be sick all over the carpet Caroline had had laid out.

"What do you want?" she asks through clenched teeth.

"Ah! I'm glad you asked! It's simple, really. I want the cure. I mean, I don't' think I've exactly made it a secret. I'm sure you understood the message I left you via your father."

She can practically feel her blood boiling now.

" _Why_ do you want it?"

"Oh, come now, sweet little Bonnie. You can't really expect me to lay all my cards out on the table now, can you?" He takes a step towards Bonnie and she stumbles a step back.

"Stay away from me," Bonnie hisses. She picks up the skirt of her dress and makes a mad dash back towards prom. She almost shrieks when she smacks right into a hard body.

"Bonnie?" Stefan asks, concerned etched on his face as he steadies her. "What's wrong?"

"Silas," she says breathlessly. "Silas is here."

"Are you sure?" Stefan asks, his face changing from concerned to alarmed. "Okay, maybe we should—" He's cut off by April Young's voice on the microphone.

"And now the moment you've all been waiting for: the announcement of you Prom King and Prom Queen! After totaling all the votes your Prom King is…Matt Donovan!" Applause bursts out from the crowd and a surprised, but smiling Matt makes his way to the stage. "And for your Prom Queen…Bonnie Bennett!"

Bonnie freezes, not quite sure she's heard right.

"Where is Bonnie Bennett?" April asks.

"Go ahead," Stefan whispers, leaning closer to her so she can hear him over the noise of the crowd. "I'll keep an eye out and alert the others."

 _How can you keep an eye out for someone that can look however they want, whenever they want?_ Bonnie wonders as she hesitantly makes her way to the stage.

A bouquet of red roses are pressed into her arms and a crown is placed atop her head. She finds herself smiling despite her trepidation. It was actually kind of nice to have a normal high school moment for once. However, reality always has a nasty habit of crashing down on her and she knows that the sooner she gets out of there, the better.

She maintains her smile with Matt long enough for pictures and all the other pomp and circumstance, but the first chance she got, she finds a little secluded corner where she lays down the roses and crown at a table and quickly makes her way outside.

* * *

"Huh…who would've thought Bonnie Bennett would get Prom Queen of all people?" Elena comments to Rebekah. "Do you think Caroline rigged it or was it a pity vote because of the whole thing with her dad?"

Rebekah shrugs, trying to swallow the bitter disappointment. She had kind of been hoping to get Prom Queen, the ultimate crowning glory for humans in high school.

She should have just compelled April to give it to her.

 _Except humans can't compel the things they want,_ Rebekah reminds herself. That's what Elijah had told her when she came looking for the cure only to find out he had given it to Kol first. Actually, Elijah had reminded her about all the things that she wouldn't be able to do as a human.

So, she made it a bit of a challenge for herself to live as a human. Sort of a test.

So far it majorly sucks.

"Anywho, I'm off to go kill the Prom Queen," Elena says, brushing past Rebekah.

"Wait, what?" Rebekah hisses, grabbing Elena's arm before the brunette can disappear. "Why?"

"Well, Stefan and Damon are still up my ass about my humanity. And Bonnie has access to the cure. I'm not taking the chance of someone convincing her to somehow slip me the cure. I like the new and I intend to keep it this way."

"Elena, you can't do that!" Rebekah insists. It's not so much that she cared about Bonnie. It's just that Kol would be pissed if he found out that she knew and didn't do anything to stop Elena and she'd never get the cure from Kol if she somehow pissed him off. And Matt would be just as angry at her as well.

"Yes I can," Elena says with a laugh. "I mean, I guess you can stop me, but I don't think you really want to create a scene in front of everyone here."

And with that, she disappears towards the same direction that Bonnie had went.

 _Shit,_ Rebekah thinks.  _Shit, shit, shit._

* * *

"I suppose congratulations are in order, my queen," Silas, still disguised as Jeremy, says mockingly as he steps out of the shadows.

"Go away," Bonnie says tightly.

"Mmm, nope. Not until I get what I want. And the longer you hold out, the more I'll push. You'll never get a moment's peace." He grins sinisterly. "I'll be there, constantly making you question what is real and what is not. Those you love will me the same fate as your dear father. Or worse. They could end up just like Jeremy."

"Shut up," Bonnie whispers, clenching her fists. "Go away, go away, goawaygoawaygoaway." She squeezes her eyes shut tightly. "GO AWAY!" She screams, not caring if the whole school heard.

When she opens her eyes again, there's no sign of her tormenter. There's nothing but silence. Blissful silence.

The silence, however, is soon broken up into blinding white pain as a set of fangs rip into her neck. At first, Bonnie thinks it's Silas, but as she as she sends a wave of magic out to cause her attacker pain, she realizes it's Elena.

At first Bonnie is dumbfounded. Sure, Elena has been cruel and callous due to her lack of humanity, but to actually attack her like this?

The confusions is quickly replaced by anger. Searing, boiling anger. Weeks, months, and, hell, even years of stress finally catch up to her in a single moment.

Humanity or not, after every single things she's done for Elena, everything she's put on the line for her best friend, everything that's happened…

She forces Elena to cough up every last bit of her blood that she took. Then, she breaks Elena's legs, ignoring the brunette's sharp cry of pain.

"Bonnie!" She hears Stefan calling out to her. It's followed with a soft, "Oh my God," from Caroline.

But Bonnie doesn't stop there. Instead, she begins with the aneurisms. One after another, she makes the vessels in Elena's brain pop again and again and again.

"Bonnie, stop!" Damon snaps, pushing in front of her to grab onto a screaming Elena.

"Bonnie, you don't know what you're doing," Stefan adds.

"No, I know  _exactly_ what I'm doing," Bonnie replies, still not letting up on her magic.

"Bonnie, please, you're scaring me!" Caroline sounds like she's about to start crying.

Finally, Bonnie releases her magical hold on Elena. The brunette vampire passes out.

"Are you okay?" Stefan asks, eyeing the blood that was still slowly trickling from the wounds in her neck.

"My father is in a coma and I have no idea whether he's going to live or die, Silas is running around and pretending to be whoever he wants, and Elena attacked me because you two idiots," she points at the Salvatore brothers, "Thought it'd be a good idea to shut her humanity off. And now you're asking me if I'm okay?" She beings to laugh so hard that she starts crying.

"Bonnie," Caroline says, her voice trembling.

"I'm going home," Bonnie says, sobering up. "I've had more than enough for one night."

She walks away, not quite catching what Caroline says to Stefan and Damon before the blonde catches up with her.

"Don't," Bonnie says to Caroline.

"Bonnie…"

"Look, I'm an emotional wreck right now, Caroline," Bonnie says, running a hand through her messed up curls. "I don't know what I'll do to someone else right now."

Caroline looks borderline devastated, but doesn't say anything.

* * *

Caroline had been kind enough to compel their limo driver to forget what Bonnie looked like and to come back to the school once he was finished dropping her off. However, instead of going home, Bonnie finds herself directing the driver to Kol's apartment.

At first she can't think of a single good reason that she should be there, but the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes it; he gets it. He gets it and he doesn't give her pity and he doesn't look at her like she's crazy.

Although, she's sure that right now she makes a hell of a sight. Her hair is a tangled mass of curls, both wet and dry blood plastered her neck and the tops of her breasts, and she's sure that her makeup is smudged and/or running.

"Silas was there," she explains to him when he opens up the apartment door. He steps back, giving her room to enter. "And Elena attacked me. Oh, and to top it off, Silas can appear like anyone he wants to. At first he pretended to be you and then he decided to try and be Jeremy."

"Well, that's fucking fantastic," Kol mutters dryly.

"I'm gonna go clean up," Bonnie says, grimacing at the sticky feel of blood on her skin.

Standing in the bathroom and looking at the mirror, Bonnie can see that she's every bit the mess that she feels.

Finding some towels, she wets them and cleans up the blood staining her skin and wipes her ruined makeup off her face. She hopes that Kol isn't too attached to those towels because they were completely ruined now.

She winces as she examines the bit mark from Elena. It was large and messy and Bonnie can still feel a dull throbbing.

 _God, how did we get here?_ Bonnie wonders.  _How did everything just get so fucked up?_

She takes one last look at herself in the mirror. She looks at how pale her skin has gotten, the dark circles under her eyes that are no longer concealed by makeup, the hopelessly tangled hair, her maimed neck.

_I look so worn down._

She reenters the rest of the studio apartment and sees Kol sitting at the table, looking pensive over a glass of amber-colored alcohol.

He looks up as she enters, dark eyes scanning the wound on her neck. He then stands up, meeting her halfway.

He bites into his wrist, holding it out to her in silent offering.

"No," she says, shaking her head. "I…" she trails off.

Maybe it's the throbbing in her neck, or the idea of having to otherwise find a way to cover the wound in public, or maybe she's just way too tired to argue over  _anything._

She brings his wrist up to her mouth, tentatively sipping some of his blood. The coppery taste isn't exactly appealing, but it feels as if a fire has been ignited throughout her body and she can feel the flesh on her neck knitting itself back together.

She releases his wrist and swipes at the stray blood on her lips with her fingers.

She's not sure why she does what she does next either. Maybe because, as messed up as it sounds, he's been one of the few constants in her life as of late, or maybe because she felt the same fluttering in her chest that she felt when she first thought Silas really was Kol, or maybe it was his blood burning in her veins and sparking something.

Either way, she finds herself standing on her tiptoes and halfway pulling Kol down to meet her, her lips pressing against his in a soft, chaste kiss. And if it surprises him, he doesn't show it.

He pulls her a little closer and kisses her deeper, his tongue parting her lips. Her hands slip under his shirt, tracing the lines of his cool skin with her fingertips.

When she breaks away to breathe and to try and pull his shirt over his head, he stops her.

"You're not in your right mind," he says.

Bonnie blinks in surprise, wondering why he even cares.

"I'm not crazy," she says. "Am I a little fucked up and traumatized? Yeah. And will I regret this later? Probably. But I can live with that. Right now, I just really need to feel something beyond the hell that my life has been for these past weeks and for some reason I can't explain, I seem to feel better around you."

He doesn't respond, but he lets her pull him in for another kiss. They break apart and she clumsily tries to slide his shirt up over his head. He finishes the job for her.

She moves her hair to one side of her should and turns around so that he can slid down the zipper of her midnight blue dress. She shimmies out of the fabric that had clung tightly to her body, leaving her in her black strapless bra and matching thong as well as her high heels.

She looks up at Kol, a nervous fluttering in her belly. Their lips meet again and she kicks her heels off, her hands digging into his biceps for leverage so she doesn't fall. Then, she suddenly finds herself being lifted up and then laid down on a soft bed, her hair fanning out around her head like a dark halo.

Kol's lips trail to her cheek and then her chin and then down the smooth column of her neck. She lets out a small sigh and then shivers a bit when his lips meet the tops of her breasts that peaked out over bra.

"As lovely as corsets are, I can appreciate how much easier these are to remove," he tells her, looking up at her with a grin as his hands slide underneath her to unhook the garment. He pulls it away from her body, baring her breasts.

She gasps and arches her back as he takes a nipple into his mouth. She feels a growing ache between her legs and she squirms a little bit, pressing her thighs together in an attempt to alleviate that ache.

"Oh, God," she breathes as Kol switches breasts.

Eventually, he pulls away. His lips trail down her flat tummy until he reaches her waistline. As he hooks his fingers around the elastic of her panties, she's sure her heart is going to leap out of her chest with how hard it's pounding.

He slides the fabric down her legs and tosses it somewhere in the room and then he pulls back to slide his eyes over her naked body, taking the entire picture in. Bonnie feels herself heat up and she resists the urge to cover up her body.

No one, not even Jeremy, has ever seen her like this before.

Part of her wonders if Kol can even tell that she's never done this before or if he even cares.

She becomes distracted when his hands run up and down the smooth brown skin of his thighs before her parts them and settles in between them. She finds herself shivering a bit as he runs a finger across her slit, his tongue soon following the same movement. She wants more, but she's not quite sure how to convey that to him.

He then zeros in on her clit, suckling at the sensitive little nub. She gasps and reaches down, tangling her fingers in his short, sandy brown hair.

He slips a finger inside of her, followed shortly by a second one. She can't resist the movement of her hips, thrusting up to meet his fingers and his mouth. She feels something coiling tightly in the pit of her belly, pressurizing just before exploding.

Her world bursts into a million different colors of pleasure and it's like nothing else exists in that exact moment.

When she comes back to reality, Kol pulls away from her with a wide grin on his face.

"Wow," she breathes, gasping for air.

Kol's grin widens even more. He leans down and kisses her. She can taste herself on his lips, something she finds strangely erotic.

Bonnie feels his hand sliding down her body until he reaches the inside of her thigh. He pushes it further to the side, opening her up wider so he can line himself up at her entrance.

With a smooth thrust, he slides inside of her and she cries out at the sensation.

He looks down at her with a strange look on his face. If she didn't know him better, she might have labeled it as wonderment. Either way, she knows that he now realizes this is her first time.

It doesn't exactly hurt. She'd expected it to; Caroline and Elena had both told her it would. Yet, instead of pain, it's more of a strange, uncomfortable sensation.

He presses his lips to hers again and her hands cling to his biceps tightly. The hand on her thigh moves and he starts slowly thumbing her clit, causing herself to sigh and spread her legs a little wider.

He begins moving, thrusting in and out of her at a slow, but steady and even pace. The feeling is still a bit uncomfortable, but his fingers playing with the swollen little pearl between her legs gives her something else to focus on.

Soon enough, the uncomfortable feeling fades away and every thrust sends a sharp zing of pleasure throughout her body.

"Oh," she sighs, arching her back. She hangs onto him tighter and finds that wrapping her legs around the small of his back angles her so that it feels even better.

"Oh, God," Bonnie groans, throwing her head back and closing her eyes. I'm going to…I'm going…" she can't even finish her sentence.

"Look at me," Kol whispers in her ear.

Her green eyes meets Kol's dark ones and she comes undone for a second time with a loud cry and he follows behind her shortly after.

When she comes down from her high, her eyes are still meeting his and she realizes that he's still hard inside of her.

"How…?" she asks breathlessly.

"Vampire," he replies with a self-assured grin.

"Then, with a fluid movement and without slipping out of her, he flips them over so that he's on his back and she's on top.

She laughs a little bit as her messed up curls fly around her face and Kol grins up at her. The small moment of mirth is soon replaced with uncertainty, though.

"I don't…"

"Just do whatever feels comfortable to you," he answers, his large hands rubbing over her bare thighs.

She starts off with a slow, uneven movements. She soon finds that placing her hands on his bare chest gives her great leverage as she moves.

In this position, he was deeper in her and all new spots were being hit. However, she's already tired from the two orgasms she's had before this and she knows that she can't keep her movements up for very much longer. Kol is more than happy to help her out, though. His hands grasp her hips more firmly and brings her down to meet him hard.

Bonnie throws her head back with a gasp.

Kol would be lying if he said he hadn't thought about this before, but he never truly believed he'd see Bonnie Bennett like this and he certainly never imagined he'd be her first.

Her head is thrown back in pleasure, the sounds leaving her throat, sweat glistening on her body, messy curls half-covering her enticingly bouncing breasts.

She's absolutely beautiful in this moment.

In very little time, she's clenching around him again and her cries become louder. It's enough to send him over the edge after her.

Feeling boneless, she lays on top of him, sweat cooling on her body.

She has no idea how she'll feel in the morning, but for now she feels content, which is something she wasn't sure she'd ever feel again.

She falls asleep like that; laying on top of Kol, his fingers running lightly through her hair.


	15. Chapter 15

Her skin tingles with the feeling of being watched. Cracking her eyes open, she glances over at Kol who is lying next to her; he was till sleeping. She turns and sees someone at the foot of the bed.

It's a woman. She's beautiful with long, dark hair falling down her back and piercing green eyes. She carried a serious look on her face and wore clothes that were obviously from a much, much different time.

"Who the hell are you?" Bonnie asks, sitting up.

"I don't have a lot of time," the woman says urgently, ignoring Bonnie's question. "I need you to  _think,_ Bonnie, really  _think._  The answers are all there in front of you.  _Think._ What is Silas's weakness? Why does he need so much blood?"

The woman opens her mouth to say something more, but then suddenly she's gone as if she was never even there in the first place. Despite the fact that she's still sitting there, staring in the same exact spot that the woman had been in, Bonnie can't help but wonder if it had been a dream.

_Or maybe it was a vision?_

"What're you staring at?" Kol asks, slowly sliding into a sitting position next to her.

"Uhm, I think…I think there was a woman here trying to tell me something."

"What?"

"I don't know," Bonnie says, running a hand through messy hair to brush it out of her face. "I think it was a vision or the spirits. Either way, I think she was trying to help."

Kol looks doubtful, but he asks, "What did she tell you?"

"She told me to think, that the answers were right in front of me," she replies, thoughtfully running her index finger along her lower lip. "She told me to think about why Silas needs so much blood."

"That doesn't seem helpful," Kol replies dryly. "It doesn't really tell you anything."

"I don't know!" Bonnie replies, frustratedly. "Who knows if I even really saw something? God, I'm so sick of all these mind games!"

Kol doesn't say anything.

In the silence, Bonnie suddenly becomes aware of her nudity and pulls the sheet up to cover her bare breasts.

"Okay, I'm going to go clean up a little bit, then go home and take care of some things," Bonnie tells Kol. "You should give Henri a call and see if maybe he can make heads or tails out of my dream or vision or whatever the hell it was."

She grabs the sheet and makes sure she's covered up with it before she begins to move around and search for her clothes. She doesn't dare look at Kol, knowing he's now lying there naked.

If nothing else, she supposes that the strange occurrence spared her from what could have potentially been an even more awkward morning after.

The truth is, though, she doesn't know how to react about last night. Part of her feels like she somehow betrayed Jeremy (which on some level she knew was wrong, but still…) and the other part of her can't bring herself to regret it.

 _Oh, whatever,_ she tells herself.  _It was a one-time thing that isn't ever happening again. Just leave it at that and move on._

* * *

When she makes it home, the first thing she does is shower. The hot water pouring over her sore muscles is soothing and comforting.

As she stands there under the spray, she replays those stranger words from that morning in her head.

" _Think. Why does Silas need so much blood?"_

Vampires needed blood to stay alive—or at least animated. Without it, they would desiccate. Could it possibly be the same with Silas?

 _He's not a vampire, though…_  Bonnie reminds herself.  _Unless nature maybe cursed him with a dependency on blood…_

The more she thinks about it, the more it suddenly clicks in her mind.

* * *

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" Klaus grumbles when Kol comes strutting into the living room.

It had cost the hybrid a small fortune (which was really just a chunk of change to him) to repair the damage he and Kol had done when they had been trapped in there, but it had been restored back to its overly-lavish glory.

"What can I say?" Kol replies with a wicked grin. "I haven't seen nor heard from you in some time. I was getting worried about you."

Klaus narrows his eyes suspiciously at his younger brother.

"Okay, fine. You caught me. I really don't give a damn how you are." The younger Original pulls an all-too-familiar silver-lined stake from the inside of his coat.

Eyes flashing, Klaus quickly stands up. Kol is already behind him, though, plunging the stake just a hair's breadth away from the hybrids heart.

"Kol—" Klaus groans out.

"Mmm, as fun as it would be to keep this little charade up, that would make this a moot point…so, I'm not actually Kol…"

"What?" Klaus asks. His voice quickly dissolves into a shout as the stake drives into him a little more.

"I'm actually Silas. I'm sure you've already heard of me," the ancient immortal explains, gleefully twisting the stake in even more. "Okay, so here's the thing," he continues, "Your younger brother and the little witch-bitch are becoming quite irritating to me. So, I suggest you all have a little chat in which the end result is me getting the cure. Or," Silas breaks the stake off in Klaus with a loud  _crack._ "I'll put  _all_ of you down including the rest of your dear siblings."

And just like that, he's gone without a trace, leaving Klaus writing in the floor in agony as he feels the piece of white oak lodged closely to his heart.

"I think I figured it out!" Bonnie exclaims excitedly as she barges into Kol's apartment later that afternoon. "I think I figured it all out…or at least most of it."

Kol and Henri look at her and Kol impatiently motions for her to continue on.

"Okay, so Caroline says that Silas has been taking huge amounts of blood from multiple bloodbanks. What if it's because, like a vampire, he needs blood to keep himself alive—or, more accurately, animated?"

"Silas wasn't taken blood the entire time that he had been posing as a professor," Kol points out.

"What if we didn't  _notice_ him taking blood?" Bonnie responds. "I think that maybe he had been taking it in small quantities until now…maybe having his powers back in full makes him need more blood?"

"Fascinating theory. How exactly does this help us?" Kol asks.

"Because two things," Bonnie answers, not at all deterred by his dismissal. "One: We have a weakness. If blood is keeping him animated, then that must mean it's possible to desiccate him. And two: I think that's why he wants the cure; he's not actually a vampire, so the cure would only take away his dependency on blood. It would still leave him immortal with a lot of powers. It would basically make him invincible."

"There's a lot of what-ifs in that thinking."

"Okay, but, out of all the theories we've run through so far, this one makes the most sense. And that vision or dream or whatever it was I had this morning told me specifically to think about why Silas needs blood."

"And what if it was Silas trying to fool you or mislead you?"

"I don't think it I," Henry says, softly interjecting into the argument. "With all that's been happening, the spirits are very unlikely to keep quiet about it. They'll want Silas gone just as much as we do, if not more."

Kol still looks skeptical, but before he can say anymore, his cell phone goes off. When he answers it, Bonnie can hear Klaus' distinct yelling on the other end, but she can't quite make out any of the words.

When he's off the phone, Kol's expression is tight and angered.

"Silas paid Nik a visit," Kol explains.

"Oh no," Bonnie says, a sinking feeling in her chest.

* * *

"How do I know it's really you?" Were the first words to greet Kol when he steps foot into the living room.

"You're the one who called me, remember?" Kol replies dryly.

"Silas shows up as anybody he wants," Klaus shouts. He was shirtless and dripping with sweat and deathly pale. "He was you."

Kol hadn't thought it was possible, but Silas was pissing him off more and more. He certainly couldn't stand the idea of the ancient immortal running around, wearing his face.

"Remember when we were children?" Kol asks, crouching down by his elder brother. "How all of us would try to take the blame for your screw-ups whenever we could? That we all did it because we knew father would be easier on us than he would you? Like all those times I took the blame when you accidentally broke one of mother's clay pots?"

Klaus looks at Kol searchingly before groaning in pain again.

"Silas, he stabbed me with the white oak stake," Klaus explains. "He broke it off near my heart and it's killing me."

Kol frowns. "That's impossible. I had that stake and I hide it where I knew no one would ever even think of looking for it."

"Well you were wrong!" Klaus snaps.

"Where did he stab you?" Kol asks.

"Through my back, next to the left side of my heart."

Stepping behind Klaus to look at his back, Kol doesn't see any traces of the stake having been stabbed into Klaus's body. Sure, vampire heal quickly, but there was no dried blood left, nothing.

Still, with the way that Klaus was acting…

"I'd have to dig inside you to find it. If it's there," Kol tells his older borther.

"Just get it out of me!" Klaus all but begs.

And that's how Kol ends up with a pliers in his hand and buried in Klaus's back. Sure, Kol would be lying if he said he'd never fantasized about stabbing the hybrid with several unpleasant instruments, but…he'd really rather be focusing on Silas at the moment.

"I'm telling you, Nik, there's nothing there," Kol says for what feels like the millionth time.

"I can't feel it!" Klaus yells. "It's inching towards my heart!"

"And I'm telling you that I can see your heart—which, honestly, I'm pretty amazed that you actually have one—and there is  _nothing_ near it."

"You're lying!" Klaus screams, breaking away from Kol. The pliers make a disturbing squishing sound as they pulled out of Klaus's body. "You can't care! You want me dead!"

"We're on this again?" Kol asks, holding the bloody pliers in his hands. "Take a moment to pull your head out of your ass, Nik. Why would I have bothered showing up here at all if I wanted you dead?"

"Because you want to see me suffer!"

"Well, duh. You deserve," Kol tells Klaus dryly. "However, wanting to see you suffer and bit and wanting you dead are two completely different things."

Klaus stares at his brother long and hard as if he's trying to search for something.

"It's not real?" He whispers.

"It's not real," Kol confirms. Deep down, he was a bit disturbed by it all. The last time he had seen anything get into Klaus's head like this was when he had suffered from the hunter's curse.

It was as if acknowledging it had suddenly flipped a switch in Klaus. Some color had started to return to his body, but he was still visibly shaken.

"Silas can just get into anyone's head like this?"

"Apparently," Kol says tightly. "He done it to Bonnie Bennett and I'm sure you've heard about what's happened to her father."

"And there's no way to stop the bastard." It's said as a statement, not a question.

"Bonnie thinks she has it figured out," Kol replies. He goes and pours himself a drink, not caring that he's staining Klaus's pristine crystal barware with the hybrid's blood that was still on his hands. "I'm not so convinced, though."

"Why? What's her solution?"

"She's convinced Silas can be desiccated."

"Well, as much as I hate to admit it," Klaus mumbles begrudgingly, "I can tell you that Bonnie Bennett is a lot cleverer than the others tend to give her credit for."

"Trust me, I've noticed," Kol says with a chuckle. "I mean, she's come pretty damn close to ending your more than once," he adds with a smirk.

Klaus scowls at that.

* * *

 When she goes to sleep that night, Bonnie sees the woman in her dreams again.

" _Who_ _ **are**_ _you?" Bonnie asks._

" _Quetsyah," the woman replies. "I see you've figured out the message I sent you earlier."_

" _Why'd you have to be so cryptic? I thought I was going crazy. Again," Bonnie tells her with a frown._

" _I didn't know how much time I would have," Quetsiyah replies. Her green eyes are piercing into Bonnie's. Bonnie didn't notice it earlier, but now she sees that she and Quetsiyah have the same eyes. "I've been trying to reach you for weeks, but I've been dead for two thousand years and the spirits hold a grudge against me. They've only now realized that I can help and have decided to let me back into the fold, so to speak."_

_Bonnie furrows her brow, not quite following._

" _They were—_ _ **are—**_ _angry at me for creating Silas in the first place, even though I tried my best to reverse what I'd done." Pause. "I'm sure you've heard the story. Or at least choice parts of it."_

" _If the story I've heard is correct at all, which I know it's not…at least not entirely, you fell in love with Silas. He talked you into working with him to make immortality possible so you could live together forever. Except he tricked you and gave it to another woman," Bonnie says a bit cautiously. If the stories were anything to go by, Quetsiyah was definitely not someone to be angered._

" _That part of the story is true," Quetsiyah admits bitterly. "It's what happened after that no one ever hears about; after I realized Silas betrayed me, after I'd realized what a fool I'd been. I had completely disturbed the balance of nature for a man who had never loved me at all."_

" _The story said that you had sealed Silas away with a cure to vampirism, but that's obviously not what happened…"_

" _In an attempt to balance things out, immortality had come with the side effect of needing blood. Silas and the woman he had cheated on me with, Amara, had massacred entire villages in their thirst. I thought I could find a way to kill him or at least lock him away, but I wanted to seal off his powers first…" Quetsiyah pauses, clearly getting lost in her memories._

" _I took Amara and I channeled her immortality to lock away Silas's powers. I was going to also use Amara to try and suck the immortality out of him as well, but when I tried it proved too much; it killed Amara and I," Quetsiyah continues._

_Bonnie feels a chill go through her body. The thought had crossed her mind more than once that whatever it would take to get rid of Silas would also kill her, except…_

" _Well, there's not exactly another person out there like Silas or Amara, so…"_

" _No, not_ _ **exactly,**_ _but you have some vampires that are very similar in their near-invincibility," Quetsiyah points out._

" _The Originals? You want to channel the Originals to try and end Silas's immortality?"_

" _It wouldn't be enough to take his immortality away, but I have no doubt that you would be able to desiccate him."_

" _Okay, but there's no way they'd ever agree to it," Bonnie replies. "I mean, what would it do to them?"_

" _Honestly? I do not know. You know just as well as I that magic is unpredictable. It oculd kill them, it could turn them human, it could weaken them permanently or temporarily, or it could nothing at all. It can't be known for sure."_

" _They'll never go for it," Bonnie repeats, her heart sinking right down into the pit of her stomach. She finally had a way to get rid of Silas and it was slipping right through her fingers._

" _They will," Quetsiyah replies confidently._

" _How do you know?"_

" _Because Silas never could stand the thought of anyone having the power to potentially challenge him. He'll begin to target them, just like he has been targeting you. They'll take the chance to be rid of him._

_Bonnie thinks back to earlier that day and the call that Kol had received from Klaus. Silas had already paid a visit to Klaus that she's sure had been disturbing. Still, she's not so convinced that would make the Originals willing to potentially put their lives or vampirism on the line._

_She looks at Quetsiyah, wanting to say something more, but she doesn't know_ _**what** _ _to say._

" _I am sorry for the mess I created and I am sorry that it falls to you to clean it up," the ancient witch tells her._

And then Bonnie wakes up.


	16. Chapter 16

"They'll never go for it," Bonnie says to Henri the next morning over coffee at  _the Grille_ after she explained her dream with Quetsiyah last night. She had wanted to talk to him first instead of Kol because she had no idea what to even say to Kol about this new revelation.

"I don't know," Henri replies honestly. "However, I do believe that if you could get  _all_ of them to agree, it would have less effect…it should distribute things a bit more evenly, if you will."

"Might, could, would, should…" Bonnie murmurs. "We have no clue about anything," she sighs.

"If Quetsiyah came to you to tell you of this, then I do believe that this is are best chance," Henri assures her.

 _Yeah, but that still leaves us with the 'how the hell do we agree to get the Originals to put their asses on the line?' problem,_ Bonnie says to herself.

"Okay," Bonnie says, tapping her fingernails against the white ceramic coffee mug. "We should go tell—" she's interrupted by the shrill ringing of her cell phone. It was Caroline calling.

"Caroline?" Bonnie says when she slides the answers button across the screen.

"Bonnie? Oh, thank God," Caroline practically sobs in relief. "I don't—I can't—"

"Caroline?" Bonnie asks quickly, growing concerned. The blonde sounds absolutely  _terrified._ "Caroline, slow down, I can't understand you. What's wrong?"

"It's Silas," Caroline replies. "He's…he's been after me all morning and…"

"Okay, Caroline, if you're not home, go there  _now,"_ Bonnie instructs. She can practically feel her heart pounding in her throat. "I'm on my way right now."

Bonnie doesn't even know what she'll do if Silas is there, but there's no way she would leave Caroline all alone.

"I'll come with," Henri says, having overheard the entire conversation. He stands up and throws some money down on the table to cover the coffee.

It was nice to have backup, but they both knew they can't do much if Silas was there. And if there's one feeling Bonnie hates more than any, it's the feeling of utter helplessness.

When they get to Caroline's house, Bonnie rushes right in while Henri is prevented by an invisible barrier due to lack of invitation. She can hear her heart pounding in her ears, afraid of what she might find.

She hears Caroline sobbing in the living and when she enters, she sees a bloodied and dazed Liz Forbes on the floor, Caroline hanging onto the woman for dear life.

"Oh my God," Bonnie breathes, sinking onto the floor next to Caroline and her mom.

"He pretended to be Tyler at first and he almost staked me," Caroline says, her voice trembling. "All day he's been pretending to be different people, saying that he had to send you a message. Tyler, Klaus, my mom. Even my dad! And my dad's dead! And then I came home to find my mom unconscious and not breathing and my blood wasn't working at first…" Caroline pauses. "Is this what he's been doing to you?" She asks. "Has Silas been trying to get into your head like this, too?"

"Yeah," Bonnie says, nodding. "It's what he did at prom." She reaches over to give Caroline a hug. "I'm so sorry this happened. I know it was because of me, because he's trying to get to me, but I think I found a way," she whispers in Caroline's ear. "Just don't worry about anything. I'll take care of it all."

Pause.

"I'm going to go now," Bonnie says, releasing Caroline. "I'm going to call someone to stay with you, but if anything else happens, call me and I'll be right there, okay?"

Caroline nods. "Be careful," she says.

Bonnie gives her a small smile and nods.

She walks to the front door where Henri was waiting. She knows he overheard everything.

"We need to talk to Kol about this  _now._ Can you call him? I have another call I need to make," she says to him as they make their way to her car.

She quickly dials Stefan's number. At first she had planned to call Matt, but he was human and there was no way Bonnie was potentially putting him in Silas's path if she could avoid it at all.

"I need you to go to Caroline's ASAP," Bonnie tells Stefan with no preamble when he picks up his phone. "Silas has spent the whole morning terrorizing her. I don't want to leave her alone, but there's some things I need to work on. I have called Matt, but…"

"Sure, I'll just bring Elena alone with me," Stefan replies.

"What? That's a really dumb idea," Bonnie blurts out before can slap a filter on her words.

"Her humanity's back on," Stefan assures Bonnie quickly. "It's been really rough. There's a lot of grief, a lot of guilt. She has a lot of apologies to make, but doesn't know where to start. It's overwhelming and I don't want to leave her alone and Damon has been doing nothing but hitting the bar for the past few days…"

"Oh…" Bonnie says, her head swirling a bit with all this new information. "Okay. Uhm, tell Elena…tell her…" What does she want to tell Elena? She doesn't even know. "I don't know. Just tell her I said something, okay?"

_Well, that's super lame._

"I will."

"Okay, thanks," Bonnie says and hangs up. She turns to Henri who had already finished his call.

"Kol's waiting for us at his apartment," Henri tells her.

"Great," she replies. "Let's go."

They drive in silence for a bit until Bonnie starts thinking aloud. "You know, something else that's also been occurring to me," she tells Henri, "If I need to channel the Originals because of their immortality, maybe there's some things I can channel at the same time for an extra power boost. Like a celestial event…a full moon or something. Do you know if anything like that is coming up soon?" She asks Henri.

The vampire in question pulls out his cellphone and quickly taps away at the screen.

"There's a meteor shower two nights from now," Henri informs her.

"So, maybe using the meteor shower, the old witch house, and as many Originals as we can get could offset most of the effects this spell will have on me and the Originals?"

"It's definitely the best chance we have," Henri agrees.

"Well, now all we have to do is just pray for a miracle that will get the Originals to agree to this."

* * *

"You want to what?" Kol asks as if he didn't quite hear Bonnie correctly.

"Okay, I know it sounds crazy and it kind of is, but think about it. I think this can really work for sure," Bonnie says.

"Except you're not sure," Kol points out.

"You can never be sure when it comes to magic," Bonnie shoots back.

"We've thought this through," Henri intervenes. "There's a meteor shower two nights from now and I'm certain the spirits wouldn't withhold their assistance on this matter, seeing as they want Silas gone just as much. This is our best chance."

"I'll call the others and you can pitch your insane idea to them," Kol tells her. "They'll think you're cracked, though, too."

"Okay, so what does that mean?" Bonnie asks with a frown. "Are you on board with this idea or not?"

Kol sighs. "I haven't decided yet. I'm not fond of the idea of putting my life on the line or potentially ending up as a human again…on the other hand, I'd certainly like to be rid of Silas once and for all."

Bonnie breathes a sigh of relief. Okay, so it wasn't a definite yes, but it wasn't a no either and that has to count for something.

 _Maybe we'll all actually live through this yet,_ Bonnie thinks.

* * *

The next day, Bonnie finds herself standing in front of the Originals in Klaus's living room. If someone had told her a few months ago that this would be happening, she would have assumed that they hit their head too hard.

Oh, how times have changed.

"You're bloody insane if you think I'm willing to die because of a supposed hunch you have," Rebekah snarls when Bonnie finishes her explanation.

"Well, if you'd much rather be terrorized by someone much, much more powerful than us, dear sister," Kol replies dryly.

"Look," Bonnie cuts in. "No, I don't know for sure what this spell will do to you, any of you…including myself. Guess what? That's how magic works. You could have all died when I broke the spell Esther used to link you. Granted, given the nature and the amount of magic that spell takes, it was a one in a billion chance of happening, but still, it was a chance," Bonnie points out.

"Except, you don't know the chances of certain consequences happening with this spell," Elijah responds.

"Silas already came after Nik because of my working to get rid of him," Kol says, gesturing towards the hybrid that has been surprisingly silent. "He made him believe that he was dying. What do you think he would do to  _you_ when he found out that you gave me the cure?" Kol asks Elijah. "Or how about  _you?"_ Kol asks, addressing Rebekah, "Seeing as you want the cure just as badly as he does."

A blanket of awkward silence fell on the room.

"Look, I've thought this through. There's a meteor shower tomorrow night, I'll be doing it at the old witch house so that the spirits can help us out, and if all four of you agree, then the channeling should be spread out enough that the effects will be minimal," Bonnie explains to them.

"If I agree to this and this doesn't turn us into humans, I want the cure," Rebekah says tightly.

"Fine," Bonnie replies instantly, ignoring Kol's scowl. Honestly, she'd probably sell her soul at this point if it meant getting rid of Silas.

"And if this does turn us human, you're going to use my mother's spell and turn me back into an Original vampire," Klaus says, finally speaking up.

Bonnie nods.

"Any other demands," she asks dryly.

"Oh, I'm sure I can think of some more eventually," Klaus answers.

Bonnie rolls her eyes. "Okay, so I'll see you all at the old witch house tomorrow night," Bonnie says.

When she and Kol exit Klaus's mansion, she finds herself laughing. She realizes she must seem like a maniac, but she can't help it.

"They agreed," Bonnie says, still in disbelief. 'They actually agreed! This is actually going to work! I mean, I'm never this lucky and you and your siblings always have this nasty habit of ruining all my plans, but…"

Kol smirks a little. Bit.

Her eyes meet his and her mind draws back to prom night. It's only been a couple of days, but with everything that's been happening, she hasn't given it a whole lot of thought. At least not as much as she normally would.

When she does, though, she feels a wave of heat throughout her body and butterflies fluttering in her stomach. However, she also feels a little guilty, too, like she somehow betrayed Jeremy's memory. But part of her tells her to just let all that guilt go.

"Uh, anyway, I'm gonna go check and Caroline and stop by the hospital to see my dad," Bonnie says quickly to break up the awkward moment. "And you can fill Henri in on the plan since he decided to avoid today's meeting…is there a reason why he tries to avoid your siblings when he can?"

"Believe me when I tell you it's a very long story," Kol says with a chuckle.

Bonnie rolls her eyes a little bit, but she walks away from Kol smiling.

* * *

"So I figured out a way to fix all this, Dad," Bonnie whispers.

She's sure that if she gets rid of Silas, whatever he's done to her father would finally end.

"It's going to be okay," she says, squeezing his hand.

She had already stopped by Caroline's to make sure that the blonde was okay. She was still shake from all that happened yesterday morning, but Sheriff Forbes was doing well, so Bonnie was sure everything would be okay.

She had thought about going to see Elena, too, but she kept stopping herself. Which, really, was pretty dumb because if things did go south, she knows she'd regret not taking the time to see Elena again.

She had also thought about writing a letter or something to leave her dad in case things went bad, but what would she write? 'Sorry you got caught up in my messed up life just like Abby and Grams did?' or 'Sorry we never got to have a  _real_ relationship?'

 _Don't think like that,_ Bonnie tells herself. It's a little mantra she's been playing over in her head again and again.  _You planned this out as best you could, so just hope for the best._

* * *

"So, I don't exactly want to be alone tonight, but I didn't tell anyone else what we're doing tomorrow, so…you wanna have some drinks?" Bonnie rambles when Kol opens the door later that afternoon.

He chuckles softly and makes a gesture to invite her in.

"I'm a little nervous," Bonnie admits when she accept a glass of clear liquid from Kol. "Well, actually, not a little. A lot. I'm really nervous. I mean, I know we planned as best we could, but you know, stuff happens, things go wrong…" Bonnie babbles. She stops herself and takes a sip of her drink. It's strong and it burns and it's how she imagines nail polish remover must taste, but she allows the burning liquid to slide down her throat anyway.

"You've proven time and time again that you're capable and I have very little doubt that you'll do the same tomorrow," Kol replies.

Bonnie can't help but smile a little at that.

"And you're not worried at all?" she asks. "I mean, you and you're siblings have a lot to lose on this one."

"Well, I've already told you I'm not thrilled about having to put myself at stake," Kol replies, "But, if left at large, Silas will come after me and the others. And if he gets the cure, I'm sure he will find a way to kill us."

Bonnie nods. She doesn't know why she brought that up in the first place because there's no way in hell she wants to chance him changing his mind. Maybe it's because she wants some sort of weird confirmation that she's not the only one who's afraid (even if Kol wouldn't ever actually admit it aloud).

She watches as he lifts his own drink to his lips. Her mind flashes back to that night when she was clinging at his biceps for dear life while he…

"Have you thought about it at all?" Bonnie blurts out before she can stop herself. "I mean, that night where we…when we…uhm…"

"When we had sex?" Kol says with a grin at Bonnie's flustered stammering.

"Uh, yeah."

 _Why can't you just let it go?_ Her mind screeches at her.  _Why put yourself in this horribly awkward situation?_

"Of course I have," he replies. "It was a good night."

Bonnie's face heats up even more.

"I think about it, too…sometimes," Bonnie continues, ignoring the little voice in her head pleading with her to shut up. "And sometimes I wondered if maybe I betrayed Jeremy in some warped way, but he's gone and he's not coming back, so…I just…you were my first and I don't give things like that away easily or to just anybody." She pauses and takes a deep breath. "And no matter which way I look at it, there's this sort of…connection between us and I don't know what to think about that, but I don't dislike the idea of it, either."

He looks at her thoughtfully for a few moments, but before she can even fully process it, he's on her, his mouth hungrily devouring hers. Her hands come up to grip at his shirt, hanging on for dear life as his lips travel from her mouth down to her neck.

"If this isn't what you want," he rasps in her ear, "Stop me now."

She thinks about. It would probably be the more sensible thing to do. But, if she's honest with herself, she doesn't want to. She likes getting lost in him and forgetting about the real world. She likes the way he makes her feel, the fire he ignites in her veins.

In response she turns her head so that her lips would meet his again. As his tongue entwines with hers, he pulls her until she's standing up.

It happens in a blur. She's up against the wall with her pants and underwear gone and her legs locked around his waist.

He reaches down between her legs to feel her. She's hot and slick. He enters her a bit roughly and she cries out in pleasure. She's unable to do much more than cling to him as he drives into her.

It's hot and frantic and she finds herself clenching around him all too soon, but it still felt so  _good._

When it's over, she finds herself still clinging to him, her forehead pressed against his neck.

He pulls her away from the wall and carries her to the bed and lays her down on her back. Their eyes meet and he kisses her.

As his mouth moves to her neck, Bonnie feels a hand sliding up her bare though, moving until it's under the shirt she's still wearing. He cups a bra-clad breast, squeezing it teasingly. He then makes quick work of her shirt and her bra and his mouth worships her breasts.

"Yes," she gasps and his hands slide down to the apex of her thighs. His mouth still focuses on her breasts while he thumbs her clit.

Right when she feels herself about to tumble over the edge, Kol pulls back and she whimpers in disappointment. He gives her a cocky grin and kisses her hard.

In response, she reaches down to grasp him in her hand, intending to turn the tables. Instead, though, as she slides her hand up and down his hard shaft, she feels her own need becoming more insistent.

She lets go as he grips her thighs, guiding her legs to wrap around the small of his back. With a smooth thrust, he enters her effortlessly and she gasps.

He keeps a smooth, even pace and she brings her hips up to meet every thrust. She can feel the pressure building up in her and she's pulls Kol down so that her lips can meet his.

She breaks away with a loud cry when she finally tumbles over the edge.

When he finishes shortly after her, he rolls off the bed and they lay there side by side in comfortable silence.

She must have dozed off shortly after because the next thing she knows, she's lying on her side and it's dark out by now.

She feels lips press against her shoulder, slowly making their way up her neck. A tongue darts out occasionally to taste her skin.

She turns her head to say something to Kol, but she forgets what when he seals his mouth over hers. A hand slides over her bare breast until it's grasping her thigh. He guides her leg back over his hip.

Bonnie groans and arches when he slides into her. One hand grips her waist firmly while the other traces patterns on her back.

This round of sex seemed different to her. There was something more languorous about, something that made it almost dream-like, more intimate.

No words are spoken. There's just small groans and gasps as he continues to slowly thrust into her and feel every inch of her skin.

Eventually, the hand that had been holding her waist in place moves until he's touch her clit. He slowly rubs the little nub of pleasure, occasionally giving it a small squeeze or rolling it in between her fingers.

When her orgasm crashes open her, it overtakes her so completely that tears actually prick her eyes and she never knew something could feel like that.

As they come down from their high, he's still pressed against her back and holding her.

Bonnie thinks that if this really does happen to be her last night on earth, then it was a pretty good one.


	17. Chapter 17

Bonnie wakes up to a red-orange sun beam dancing across her face. She groans and stretches, green eyes blinking open blearily.

"You should go back to sleep," Kol says. He's looking out the window, a pair of dark jean slung low across his hips. "It's only dawn and you need to be well-rested for tonight."

"Don't worry, she mumbles, still half-asleep. "I'm too exhausted to wake up right now anyway." She closes her eyes, turning to half-smush her face into the pillow.

She hears a low laugh and feels a weight on the bed. She smiles into the pillow when his lips press softly against a bare shoulder.

"You should sleep, too," she sighs. "There's no good reason to be awake at this time of day."

The next time she wakes up, there's coffee and breakfast waiting for her on the table.

"Mmm, look at you being surprisingly thoughtful," she teases. She makes sure the sheet is wrapped around her body well enough before she gets up and sits at the table.

"Don't get to used to it," he tells her dryly. "Today is a special occasion."

"Such a gentlemen," she replies dryly. "Really, thank you, though."

They fall into a comfortable silence while she eats.

"I should take a shower," she says when she's done with breakfast. "I'm kind of a mess right now…do you mind?"

"Not at all," he says with a predatory grin. He pulls her up, yanking on the sheet until it's off her body. He then lifts her body on his shoulder, a hand firmly resting on her bare behind.

She finds herself laughing all the way to the shower.

* * *

She passes the day in Kol's apartment, mostly relaxing and thinking things over. She'd even convinced him to tell her more stories of the things he's seen in the past.

All too soon, it becomes time for them to meet the others at the old witch house.

"You're nervous," Kol says, seeing Bonnie's incredibly tight grip on the steering wheel when they reach the old witch house.

"Of course I am," she replies with a shaky laugh. "How can I not be? There's a lot at stake."

He reaches over and pries her fingers of the wheel.

"You can't afford to be nervous right now," he tells her. "Everything depends on you."

"Oh, well, no pressure then," Bonnie replies sarcastically.

He laughs at her and presses his lips to her in a hard kiss.

"Okay," she breathes when they break away. "Okay, it's now or never. Let's get in there before I completely and totally lose what little nerve I have left."

They get out of the car and begin to make their way to the old dilapidated house. With every step, Bonnie hears her heart pounding hard and she almost thinks that it's going to leap out of her chest.

"What are you doing here?" she asks Henri wide-eyed when she enters the house and sees him. She had and Kol had kept him looped in on the plan, but she hadn't actually expected him to be present. She didn't want him to get caught in any potential crossfire.

"Surely you didn't think I'd miss this?" He asks her. "I've been living for this moment for centuries," he adds.

"What if you get hurt?"

"I've been around for well over three hundred years…it wouldn't exactly be a tragedy," he replies with a gentle smile.

"Speak for yourself," she hears Rebekah mutter. "I still have half a mind to haul my arse off to New York or something."

Bonnie bites her lips, but she knows that there's no way she can convince him otherwise.

"Okay," Bonnie says, turning to the Originals. "Here's how it's going to work. You're all going to have to drink some of my blood. It'll temporarily connect you to me so that I can channel you," she explains.

She pulls out a glass cup and a knife that she had taken from Kol's apartment. She sets the glass down on an old dusty table and holds her hand over the cup. She winces as she runs the blade over her palm. Swallowing the sting down, she squeezes her hand into a fist to squeeze blood into the cup.

She first hands the cup to Elijah who's standing closest to her. The siblings pass it around. It reaches Kol last. He gives her a smirk and a wink, which don't go unnoticed by the others.

She's sure that her red face doesn't go unnoticed either.

"Now what?" Rebekah asks.

Not saying anything, Bonnie closes her eyes. Breathing deeply, she opens herself up and reaches for the connection. Opening her eyes, she realizes she's hit it when all the Originals jerk slightly as if a bit surprised.

"The meteor shower will be starting in a few minutes," Henri informs her.

Bonnie nods and pulls out her cellphone and dials Shane—well, Silas's number.

"And here I thought you'd never call," he says when he picks up.

"Well, you made it pretty clear that you were going to continue to make my life hell unless you got what you wanted," Bonnie says. "You want the cure? Come meet me at the old witch house and we'll make a deal."

The only response she gets is the click of a phone hanging up.

"Great. Now what?" Klaus asks.

"Now, we wait. It shouldn't be long," Bonnie says.

"Well, well," a voice drawls from behind her, causing Bonnie to spin around.

He was wearing his own face this time…that is, if the face he had been wearing as Shane was his true face at all.

He looks at her and at the Originals who are standing behind her. She can tell by the expression on his face that he instantly knows what will happen.

"Hello, Henri," he says, addressing the vampire in question. "It's been a while. Sorry I haven't come to visit you sooner, my old friend. I've been busy with some things, you know?"

"'Old Friend.' Is that what you call those who you lead to death?" Henri asks tightly.

"Mmm, if I recall correctly you did it on your own. I advised you against it, but you refused to listen. Messed up quite a bit of careful planning on my part," Silas says with a frown. "Ah, well…" he turns his attention on Bonnie. "I'll admit, I've been underestimating you quite a bit, little Bonnie Bennett," Silas says with a demented little grin. "I mean, you were just easily manipulated from the get go, but look at you now. Perhaps things could have gone differently, but…" he's suddenly behind her, hot breath fanning her neck. "What if I asked you to join me?" He whispers in her ear.

Bonnie has no doubt that he's trying to be enticing and seductive, but all it does is make her skin crawl.

"Just think: All the things I know, the things I could still teach you. You could be truly unstoppable with my help." His hand comes up to lightly run along her arm. Bonnie resists the urge to slap it away and try to burn his face off with magic.

Instead, a wry little smirk makes its way onto her full lips as she turns around to face Silas. Her proximity to him is more than a little startling for her, but she refuses to take a step back, to give him an inch.

"Here's the thing, though," Bonnie says, careful and calculated. "At this point, nothing, no amount of power in this world, could possibly be more satisfying knowing that you're no longer walking among us."

And with that, she quickly grabs onto his arms and quickly begins chanting her spell, allowing all the energy from the Originals, the meteor shower, and the spirits to enter her body and go straight through Silas.

It was exhilarating. Exhilarating enough that she could move past the pain of Silas sending his own magic through her, burning her and trying to rip her apart.

Looking up, she watches Silas. She watches as his skin turns an ashen gray, as his veins begin to protrude. Except, he didn't start looking like other desiccated vampires she's seen. Maybe it was because he wasn't actually a vampire or maybe because he was so old. Either way, he started turning into stone.

After what felt like an eternity, it was over. She lets go of Silas and feels herself tumble to the ground, not quite having the energy to hold herself up.

She sees Henri hovering above her, concerned etched on her face and she thinks she hears someone calling out her name, but her vision was growing blurry.

"I did it," Bonnie finds herself gasping. "I did it. He's gone."

And then everything goes black.


	18. Chapter 18

When she wakes up, the first thing she sees is Damon Salvatore.

"Well, I have definitely died and gone to hell," Bonnie groans.

"Rude," the blue-eyed vampire replies.

"Well, why else would you be by my bedside?"

He snorts. "You're definitely going to be better in no time. You had everyone all worried."

She looks around and realizes she's in a hospital room. A heart monitor beeps steadily and IV line traces into her forearm.

"How long was I out?"

"Just three days."

"Why are  _you_ here?"

"Well, getting drunk every night for the past week seems to have lost its novelty, so…"

Bonnie honestly can't tell if he's joking or serious.

"Well, that and I'm going around and saying my goodbye before I leave this hellhole," he adds with a shrug, the leather of his jacket making a crinkling sound with the motions.

"You're leaving Mystic Falls?" Bonnie asks, surprised.

"Me and Stefan both are. Elena decided that she wants time away from both of us and we…well, we don't really know what to do, so we're just leaving."

"That's…surprisingly healthy," Bonnie says, having a hard time processing all the information that he had just thrown at her.

_Well, here's to hoping that those two finally get their shit together once and for all._

* * *

Elena is the next person to come visit her.

"Hey, um, Stefan told me that you were awake," Elena says, carefully setting a bouquet of multicolored flowers down on the bedside table.

"Thanks for these," Bonnie says with a small smile. "Damon was here earlier. Told me that you decided you wanted to be away from both him and Stefan. Good for you."

"Yeah, getting my humanity back made me take a long hard look at myself and I realized that even before I became a vampire I was starting to become a horrible person," Elena says, looking at the ground and tucking a lock of brown hair behind her ear. "I think I need to figure myself out without whatever co-dependency I had developed with them both. I need to rediscover myself, figure out what it is I really want." She pauses and looks up at Bonnie. "God, I am so sorry. For everything. For the things I said to you, for almost killing you, for not caring enough to notice that you were on that island against your will…"

Bonnie smiles softly and nods.

"I'm not going to sit here and say that it's all okay because, really, it's not," Bonnie says.

Elena swallows heavily and nods and looks at the ground.

"But I don't have the energy to be angry at anyone anymore. I don't know if we'll ever be what we used to, but maybe with some time we can repair our relationship."

Her dad chooses that moment to enter the room. Elena says goodbye and quietly exits the hospital room.

"Hey, you're awake," Bonnie says with a small smile.

"So are you," her father replies.

She laughs a little bit, but quickly sobers up.

"I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for that stupid note I left you about New York, about not being there to protect you, about everything," she says.

"Stop," her father says, shaking his head. "I'm your father. I should have been protecting  _you_ from all of this, from the very start and I'm sorry I didn't do that."

She reaches out and hugs him, clinging to him like a little girl.

* * *

"Oh my God, I'm torn between wanting to kill you and kiss you," Caroline all but screeches as she bursts into the hospital room, jumping on Bonnie's bed. Matt and Stefan were in tow.

"I love you, Caroline, but not quite in  _that_ way," Bonnie says teasingly.

"Shut up," Caroline says, practically climbing on top of Bonnie and hugging her. "You told me you thought you were going to be able to put Silas down, but you should have told me how and when," she says. "Imagine when I got that call from  _Kol_ of all people."

"They're okay—the Originals, I mean?" Bonnie asks. "Like they're still vampires and everything?"

"Uh…yeah…why? Was the spell supposed to have some freaky after-effects?" Caroline asks.

"It could have, but I also channeled the spirits and that meteor shower a few nights ago, so I guess it offset everything," Bonnie says.

"Minus the fact that you were out for  _three_ days," Matt points out.

"Could have been worse," Bonnie says with a shrug.

"Well, if you every do anything like that again," Caroline says, still clinging to Bonnie. "I'ma kill you."

"Of course," Bonnie says. "Now," she says, looking between Stefan and Matt. "Who's going to go out and keep some horribly greasy fast food to go with my bad reality television?"

* * *

It's been two days since she'd been released from the hospital and she hadn't seen nor heard from Kol or Henri since. She'd be lying if she said she isn't worried. Caroline had mentioned that they went to go dispose of Silas, but they never said  _where._

Hell, she even worked up the nerve to find Rebekah and ask.

"No, I haven't heard from him," Rebekah tells her. She seemed angry for some reason. Her eyes narrow on Bonnie and her head cocks to the side. "You care about him, don't you?"

"Yeah," Bonnie replies. There wasn't really any point in lying about it.

"Good luck to you," Rebekah says.

_Okay, then._

Later that night, she hears a call pull up the drive. Glancing out the window, she sees Kol and Henri get out. She quickly goes downstairs to meet them, not wanting her dad to wake up.

"About damn time," Bonnie hisses by way of greeting. "You could have called me or something."

"Worried?" Kol asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Duh, of course I was worried," Bonnie snaps. "Where were you?"

"Dumping Silas's body in the Mariana Trench," Kol replies. "Although, first we put him in a safe. Filled that safe with concrete, welded that safe shut, and then encased that safe in concrete. And I contacted an old friend in Japan to spell it to become invisible once we threw it in the ocean."

"For once I approve of the overkill," Bonnie says, a little wide-eyed. "So…what now?"

"I'm going to take a walk, a long walk until the sun rises," Henri says. "I am happy to have gotten the chance to know you, Bonnie. And I have no doubt that you will overcome each and every obstacle that will be thrown your way. Just remember that you are strong enough to."

_Why does it sound like he's about to…_

He presses something into her hand and when Bonnie looks down, she sees that it's his daylight ring.

"Wait…you're…?"

Henri gives her a gentle smile. "The only reason I continue through these three hundred years was to prevent others from meeting the same fate as I. Now that it's no longer I worry…"

"But…" Bonnie feels her eyes filling up with tears.

"Don't cry for me, Bonnie Bennett," he says firmly. "I am content with this decision. I'm ready to see my wife again."

He hugs her, presses a kiss to the top of her head, and whispers one last goodbye before he heads down her front path and into the night.

"We should stop him, shouldn't we?" Bonnie asks Kol. "I mean…we should…" she moves to follow Henri, but Kol pulls her back.

"No. He made this decision and he's content with it. The possibility of immortality isn't for everyone." He wipes the stay tears that have fallen from her eyes.

She moves and takes a seat in one of the chairs on the front porch, heavily running a hand through her hair.

"What are your plans now?" She asks, looking up at him.

"I'm thinking about heading down to New Orleans," he replies with a shrug. "I haven't been there in a hundred years, but it's always been a good time down there."

She nods, not knowing what to say. Deep down she hadn't really expected him to stick around town, but she couldn't help the few pains of regret she felt at that prospect.

"What would you say if I asked you to come with me?"

Her eyes widen in surprised.

It'd be crazy to actually go with him…wouldn't it?

"It'd be crazy to say yes," she tells him. "I mean…you're you and I'm me and…either way, though, like I told you before, there's some sort of connection between us and I'm not quite sure what it is or what it's going to lead to, but I think I would like to find out."

He grins and bends down and kisses her hard.

"I'm still spending the summer in Mystic Falls, though," she tells them when they break away. "I've got a lot of loose ends to tie up and I still need to graduate high school."

He sighs, but goes back to kissing her.

* * *

"How was graduation?" Kol asks her. They were laying out on the rooftop, basking in the hot summer night.

She had never invited Kol into her house. Not because she didn't trust him. It was more because of her father than anything. Her dad was already displeased about her dating Kol and about her planning on moving to New Orleans with him. She figured the least she could do is give him the peace of mind to not invite Kol into the house.

"It was good. I made it across stage without tripping, my dad managed to not embarrass me in speech, Caroline was kinda mad because Stefan decided to split with Damon before graduation. But I guess if you've already sat through God knows how many graduations, what's the big deal in missing one? Oh, and then Klaus happened to be there, which was kinda weird. And then he asked me my advice on Caroline, which was even weirder. I told him that, as flattered as Caroline is by the attention, if he didn't back off, she'd always resent him for breaking up her and Tyler, that he should give her breathing space to figure things out. I guess he actually listened because after, Caroline told me that Tyler was coming back."

Kol hums, but doesn't say anything. After a few moments, he breaks the comfortable silence by sitting up.

"I have a gift for you," he says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a box.

Curious, she takes it and opens it up.

_Oh my God, is that…_

"Is this the cure?" Bonnie asks, wide-eyed.

"Yep."

"Well, no wonder Rebekah's been grumpier than usual this past week and a half," Bonnie says. "We promised this to her. How has she not gone and tried to rip your head off?"

"Well, I might have told her that when Silas was desiccated, the cure was destroyed as part of the whole 'his magic being broken' sort of thing," he says casually.

"Which is obviously a lie," Bonnie finishes, looking at the crystallized vial in her hands. "You know," she says, looking up. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that you want to keep this from Rebekah because you don't like the idea of seeing her grow old and then having to live without her."

"Hmm," Kol says, running his fingers across her neck. "I guess it's a good thing you don't know better then, huh?"

She laughs a little and kisses him sweetly.

* * *

"Looks like we're all set," Kol says as Bonnie shoves one more suitcase into his trunk. She had already said her goodbyes to everyone and her father had agreed to send her car and some of her other belongings down shortly.

She had enrolled in a university in New Orleans (granted, Kol had compelled her way through admissions because she had missed all the deadlines, but she figures she deserves a freebie for once) and would be starting in a few weeks. She thinks Grams might be rolling in her grave because she's not attending the older witch's alma mater.

"There is one stop I'd like to make along the way," Bonnie says. "See, I had talked to Caroline and Elena and neither of them want the cure, but I know someone who would appreciate it," Bonnie says.

And that's how she ends up on Abby's front porch.

"Bonnie," the woman says, surprised when she opens up the door.

"Uh, I'm not staying long," Bonnie says, shaking her head when Abby moves to invite her in. "I just…I wanted to give you this," she holds out the cure. "It's the cure for vampirism. I know how hard transitioning into a vampire has been on you, so."

Wordlessly, Abby shakily takes the small vial out of Bonnie's hand.

"Anyway, that was all," Bonnie says awkwardly. "So, bye."

"Bonnie," Abby calls out softly. Bonnie turns around. "I am sorry," the woman tells her.

The unspoken words were:  _'I'm sorry for always being so selfish, I'm sorry for not being a good mother…for not being a mother at all.'_

"I know," Bonnie says with a sad little smile. "Whatever it is that you're looking, that seems to be missing from your life, I really do hope you find it someday."

And with that she leaves, her heart feeling a little lighter.

"Ready to go?" Kol asks when she gets back into the passenger's seat.

"Yeah, let's get out of here," Bonnie replies with a smile.

Kol reaches over and grabs her hand and kisses the pads of her fingers, nibbling on them a bit. She giggles a little at the sensation and pulls her hand out of his grip.

"Just drive."

He starts the car and zooms them out of there quickly.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
